ATLANTA (CNN) – A mutation that enables COVID-19 to escape antibody protection has now been found in samples from a rapidly spreading strain in the UK, according to a report Monday from Public Health England.
The mutation, called E484K, was already part of the genetic signature of variants linked to South Africa and Brazil.
According to the PHE report, the mutation was newly detected in at least 11 samples of the British B.1.1.7 strain. It also appears that some of these samples may have acquired this mutation independently, rather than spreading from a single case.
This could mean that a variant that is already known to be more transmissible may also have some resistance to the immune protection offered by vaccines, or that people who were previously infected are more likely to re-infect , say experts.
“This does not appear to be good news for vaccine efficacy,” said Joseph Fauver, an associate researcher in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.
He added that the new finding is also something to keep an eye on in the US, where attempts to search for genetic sequencing for variants have lagged behind. “The fact that we have only seen it in the UK may be a result of their robust genomic surveillance program,” said Fauver.
Evidence of immune flight
Experts believe it is too early to predict whether this development will greatly affect the trajectory of COVID-19 in the UK and around the world.
However, there is research that suggests that E484K may be an important scapegoat for why certain vaccines seem less effective in South Africa.
Novavax recently announced that its vaccine was 89% effective in its Phase 3 UK trial, but it was only 60% effective in a separate Phase 2b study conducted in South Africa. Similarly, in the Phase 3 trial of Johnson & Johnson, the efficiency differed by country: 72% in the USA compared to 57% in South Africa. In both trials, 90 to 95% of cases in South Africa were linked to the B.1.351 variant, which contains the E484K mutation.
But much of the early evidence of this so-called ‘escape mutant’ comes from laboratory research, which shows that antibodies appear to be less able to bind ear proteins due to the mutation.
The latest example comes from a new study that found that vaccines of vaccines were less effective at neutralizing a synthetic virus similar to that in the PHE report – meaning that it carries important mutations of B.1.1.7, plus E484K, contains.
The addition of the E484K mutation apparently increased the measure of the level of antibodies needed to prevent the laboratory virus from infecting cells, compared to B.1.1.7 mutations on their own.
The study took blood from 23 people who had received a single dose of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine three weeks earlier, with a mean age of 82. The study could not show how it affects the actual likelihood of people becoming infected with virus variants. , did not affect.
Referring to the GISAID genomic database, the study also counted a slightly higher number of cases than the PHE report: two unrelated cases in Wales and a group of more than a dozen in England, already in the first half of December 2020 appears.
Vaccines more important than ever
Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University, noted that the E484K mutation has appeared sporadically in several samples for months, but it appears that the virus does not provide an advantage in populations without existing immunity.
But this is a different story in places like South Africa, where many people were previously infected. Dr Anthony Fauci remarked on Monday that a very high re-infection to the point where the previous infection does not seem to protect you, with reference to the work of colleagues in South Africa.
The B.1.1.7 strain first spotted in the UK has now been found in at least 70 countries worldwide, including about 470 known cases in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts believe that aggressive testing, compliance with COVID-19 guidelines and the implementation of vaccines are more important than ever in the light of these distribution variants.
“We need to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Fauci said earlier. “While there is reduced protection against the variants, there is enough protection to prevent you from contracting serious illnesses, including hospitalization and deaths.”
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