* UK says worried about S.African variant
* Mutations include extensive changes in protein
* Changes could lead to ‘escape of immune protection’
* Vaccine makers test shots against new variants (Reports with quotes, details of scientists)
British scientists on Monday expressed concern that COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out in Britain may not be able to protect against a new variant of the coronavirus that originated in South Africa and has spread internationally.
In recent weeks, both Britain and South Africa have detected new, more transmissible variants of the COVID-19 virus that have caused an increase in cases. British Health Minister Matt Hancock said on Monday that he was now very concerned about the variant being identified in South Africa.
Simon Clarke, an associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that although both variants have some new features in common, the one found in South Africa has ‘a number of additional mutations … what’ has a relationship ‘.
He said it involves more extensive changes to an important part of the virus, known as the peak protein – which the virus uses to infect human cells – and that it could make the virus less susceptible to the immune response caused by the vaccines. word.
Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at Warwick University, also noted that the South African variant has ‘multiple peak mutations’.
“The accumulation of more peak mutations in the South African variant is more worrying and could lead to some escape of immune protection,” he said.
Scientists, including Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, and John Bell, professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, said they were testing the vaccines against the new variant and said they could make the necessary adjustments within six weeks.
Public Health England said there is currently no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines would not protect against the mutated virus variants. The British Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The richest countries in the world have started vaccinating their populations to protect against a disease that has killed 1.8 million people and shattered the world economy.
There are currently 60 candidates for vaccinations in trials, including those already being rolled out from AstraZeneca and Oxford, Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Russian Sputnik V and Sinopharm, China.
According to scientists, the South African and British variants are associated with a higher virus load, which means that a greater concentration of virus particles is in patients’ bodies, which could possibly contribute to increased transmission.
Oxford’s Bell, which advises the British government’s intelligence task force, said on Sunday it thought vaccines would work on the British variant, but said there was a ‘big question’ whether they would work on the South African variant.
BioNTech’s Sahin told Germany’s Spiegel in an interview published on Friday that their vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to instruct the human immune system to fight the virus, should be able to protect against the British variant.
“We are testing whether our vaccine can also neutralize this variant and will know more soon,” he said. (Reporting by Kate Holton, Kate Kelland, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Edited by Mike Collett-White)
Our standards: the principles of the Thomson Reuters Trust.