Fresh data show that the South African virus variant is taking up vaccine efficacy

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Clinical trial data on two COVID-19 vaccines show that a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa reduces their ability to protect against the disease, stressing the need for to vaccinate large numbers of people as quickly as possible. .

The vaccinations of Novavax Inc and Johnson & Johnson were welcomed as important future weapons to curb deaths and hospitalizations in a pandemic that infected more than 101 million people and claimed more than 2 million lives worldwide.

However, it was significantly less effective in preventing COVID-19 in trial participants in South Africa, where the powerful new variant is widespread, compared to countries where this mutation is still rare, according to preliminary data released by the companies.

“It is clear that the mutants have an effect on the efficacy of the vaccines,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in an information session. “We can see that we are going to be challenged.”

Novavax on Thursday reported the results of mid-term study reports showing that the vaccine is 50% effective in preventing COVID-19 among people in South Africa.

This is compared to the results of the late stage in the UK, where the vaccine was up to 89.3% effective in preventing COVID-19.

J&J said on Friday that a single shot of the coronavirus vaccine was 66% effective in a massive trial across three continents.

However, there were large differences per region. In the United States, where the South African variant was first reported this week, the efficiency reached 72%, compared to only 57% in South Africa, where the new variant, known as B 1.351, 95% of the COVID-19 cases reported in the trial reported.

Another, highly transmissible variant first discovered in the United Kingdom and now in more than half of the US states could be less effective than its South African counterpart.

However, the new findings raise questions about how effective vaccines from Pfizer Inc will partner with BioNTech and Moderna Inc against new variants. The two vaccines showed an efficacy of about 95% in trials conducted primarily in the United States before the new virus versions were identified in other countries.

“This is now another pandemic,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a researcher at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard University in Boston, who helped develop the J&J vaccine, said.

Barouch said there is now a wide range of new variants in circulation, including in Brazil, South Africa and even the United States, which are highly resistant to antibodies caused by vaccines.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said there was a strong possibility that emerging variants could eventually make the company’s vaccine ineffective.

“This is not the case yet … but I think it is very likely that it will happen one day,” Bourla said at the World Economic Forum. The drug manufacturer is considering whether its vaccine should be changed to defend the South African variant.

‘STOP HOSPITALS FROM THE CRISIS’

Experts said all four of the vaccines still have great value in their ability to reduce severe COVID-19.

“The end game is to stop death, to prevent hospitals from being in a crisis – and all these vaccines, even against the South African variant, seem to be doing it substantially,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an expert in infectious disease at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

J & J’s vaccine, for example, was 89% effective in preventing serious diseases in South Africa.

J&J, chief scientific officer, dr. Paul Stoffels, said he suspects that a type of immune system response, called a T-cell response, plays a protective role and can help prevent serious diseases.

“We knew it to some extent, but it’s also better and very confirmed that we can see it in the clinic now,” Stoffels said in an interview.

Nevertheless, Fauci said the reduced efficiency rates underscore the need to closely monitor variants and to accelerate vaccination efforts before new, and even more dangerous, mutations emerge.

“The best way to prevent further evolution of a virus is to prevent it from recurring,” Fauci said, “and you do this by vaccinating people as quickly as possible.”