JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa could evade the antibodies it attacks in blood-plasma treatments from previously recovered patients, and could jeopardize the effectiveness of the current range. vaccines reduced, scientists said Wednesday.
Researchers are rushing to determine whether the vaccines currently being rolled out around the world are effective against the so-called 501Y.V2 variant, identified by South African genomics experts at the end of last year in Nelson Mandela Bay.
“This lineage shows a complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,” writes the team of scientists from three South African universities working with the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in an article published in the bioRxiv journal has been published.
“Furthermore, 501Y.V2 shows a significant or complete escape of neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19 recovery plasma,” they wrote, adding that their findings “emphasize the prospect of reinfection … and reduce the effectiveness of current rise-based vaccines can predict. “
The 501Y.V2 variant is 50% more contagious than the previous one, South African researchers said this week. It has already spread to at least 20 countries since it was reported to the World Health Organization in late December.
It is one of several new varieties discovered in recent months, including others first found in England and Brazil.
The variant is the main driver of South Africa’s second wave of COVID-19 infections, which reached a new daily peak above 21,000 cases earlier this month, well above the first wave, before falling to around 12,000 per day. .
Restorative blood plasma from previous patients has not been shown to be effective when administered to seriously ill patients requiring intensive care for COVID-19, but it has been approved as an emergency measure in several countries.
British scientists and politicians have expressed concern that vaccines currently being developed or developed may be less effective against the variant.
The paper said that it remains to be seen how effective current vaccines are at 501Y.V2, which will only be determined by large-scale clinical trials. But the results showed that the need for new vaccines was designed to address the threat, he said.
(Reported by Tim Cocks; Edited by Peter Graff)