The variant was first spotted in South Africa in October and has now been found in more than a dozen countries.
In both studies, the work was done in the laboratory and not in humans, so more research is needed to determine the true threat of the new variant.
“I think the evidence is evolving that these mutations – and I think other mutations – will emerge around the world – and are already occurring – that escape antibodies from previous infection,” said Alex Sigal, a virologist of Africa Health Research Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Infectious Biology, told CNN. “This is worrying.”
It is unclear if this means that someone would be vulnerable to the new variant if they already had Covid-19, or what it could mean for people who have been vaccinated.
“If two groups independently see the same basic answer, that’s fine – there’s more consonance that they’re correct,” said Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The study looked at far fewer mutations in the variant than the South African studies examined.
None of the studies were peer-reviewed or published in medical journals.
While scientists are finding out if these variants are particularly dangerous – and studies are underway in various laboratories worldwide – one thing is clear: get the vaccine if you can.
“I would definitely get it if I could,” Sigal said. “My father-in-law had the opportunity to fly to Israel and pick it up, and I dragged him out of the house because you can not find it here in South Africa.”
A trio of studies
In his research, Sigal found that antibodies from all six study subjects failed to fully combat the new variant.
“One participant had a pretty good response, but no one was able to escape unscathed,” he said.
The study was posted on the website for KRISP, the Kwazulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform. The other two studies were placed on a prepress server.
In the study, which had similar findings, blood was drawn from 44 people in South Africa who had Covid-19. It has been confirmed that almost all of their cases took place before September, that is before the variant was noticed in South Africa.
The researchers looked at whether their antibodies would fight the new variant.
For about half of the 44 people, their antibodies were powerless against the new variant. For the other half, the antibody response was weakened but not completely knocked out.
In the third study, conducted at Rockefeller University, researchers looked at blood from 20 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Different mutations in the viruses did allow some types of antibodies to escape, but the volunteers’ immune systems threw an army of different types of antibodies at the viruses.
The Rockefeller study looked at fewer mutations than the two South African studies. Three key mutations were looked at on the nails that sit on top of the coronavirus because it is the part of the virus that is targeted by the vaccines.
“It’s useful, but still not the full story,” said John Moore, a vaccine researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine.
However, the South African studies used the virus itself, or a model thereof, which contains eight peak mutations.