When the first load of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine arrived in South Africa this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa praised the consignment as a way to stop the tide against the virus.
But the growth of a dangerous variant of the coronavirus has thwarted the country’s response to the pandemic, raising fears around the world that mutant strains could potentially ineffective the current generation of vaccines.
“What we are going to see is a cat-and-mouse game between virus-changing and then vaccine manufacturers need to quickly change their vaccines,” said Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.
“So the lesson is that we need to keep the numbers low so that we don’t see more and more variants popping up, which makes it harder to vaccinate against.”
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The first signs of problems came in October when doctors noticed a worrying increase in the number of cases, specifically around Nelson Mandela Bay, the eastern tip of the scenic stretch of the South African coastline known as ‘the garden route’.
‘Within five weeks, scientists have identified a variant with disturbing mutations to its ear protein, the part of the virus that enables it to enter human cells. Current Covid-19 vaccines target the vein protein, but the mutations can make antibodies produced by the vaccines less effective. The mutations can also make people who have had coronavirus previously more susceptible to reinfection.
“People who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and generated antibodies against the virus may no longer be able to recognize these new variants of the virus due to the changes in the protein,” Richard Lessells said. researcher at the genetic sequencing laboratory, KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, who identified the variant.
“What this means is that it is possible for humans to re-infect, and this could contribute to it spreading more effectively through the population.”
South Africa is the country hardest hit on the continent and suffered from a first wave of coronavirus that peaked in July, midwinter in the Southern Hemisphere. The government instituted strict lock-up measures, closed borders, enforced indictments and even banned alcohol sales to prevent “reckless behavior” caused by alcohol.
By the end of September, business was down, and the government announced the easing of restrictions on the closure and reopened the country for tourists and business travelers. This freedom gave the new variant of the virus room to spread, but a second wave that hit faster and faster accelerated than the first.
More than 48 000 South Africans have died from coronavirus and the South African variant has been detected in more than 40 countries, including the United States.
Health experts warn that global vaccination efforts need to be stepped up to prevent more mutations from occurring and more variants emerging. Another tribe that originated independently in Brazil also showed similar mutations as the South African tribe, with the same potential to re-infect people who already had Covid-19.
President Joe Biden signed last month on travel restrictions to ban passengers from South Africa, in an effort to control the spread of the variant. But with the number of cases in other countries still high, and the possibility of the coming third and fourth waves, the virus could continue to change and resist currently available vaccines.
“We are in a race to get the virus ahead, to reduce transmission, to vaccinate everyone in the world before this virus develops in a way we cannot predict,” said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, a health organization, said. in the United Kingdom.
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The mutations caused a serious setback for South Africa’s vaccination plans. A study of about 2,000 people indicated that the AstraZeneca vaccine is much less effective against the new variant, which protects people only 22 percent better than a placebo. The findings forced the South African government to stop the explosion of the vaccine, which would begin in the week of February 8.
Instead, the government quickly switched gears to focus on another vaccine: a single-dose shot developed by Johson & Johnson, which was expanded in South Africa and showed better results compared to the new variant. The rollout began on Wednesday with health workers as part of an ‘implementation study’ that will monitor its effectiveness. Ramaphosa also got the chance.
South Africa then faced the challenge of dealing with the millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that have already arrived in the country and will expire at the end of April.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced this week that the government had offered the unused doses to the African Union to be distributed to other countries on the continent that had not been hit so hard by the South African variant, saying that there “would be no wasteful and fruitless expenditure.”
The government said it had also contracted the Pfizer vaccine, although a new laboratory study had also raised doubts about the effectiveness of the shot against the South African variant, which could further hurt the country.
Meanwhile, the Oxford University team working with AstraZeneca to develop its vaccine has said it will start working on a new version designed to recognize the new variant. The scientist who led the development of the vaccine, Sarah Gilbert, a professor of vaccination, told the BBC that the modified shot could be ready by autumn.