BEIJING (Reuters) – Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine may not elicit sufficient antibody responses to a new variant identified in Brazil, a small-scale laboratory study showed.
The emergence of variants of the new coronavirus has raised concerns that vaccines and treatments developed based on previous strains may not work as strongly.
Plasma samples taken from eight people vaccinated with Sinovac’s CoronaVac did not effectively neutralize the P.1 lineage variant, or 20J / 501Y.V3, researchers said in an article published Monday before peer -review.
“These results suggest that P.1 virus may escape from the neutralization of antibodies induced by … CoronaVac,” said researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, the Washington University School of Medicine in the United States, and some other settings in the paper.
CoronaVac is used in mass vaccinations in countries such as China, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey.
Although the study suggests that reinfection may occur in vaccines, the protection CoronaVac provides against severe COVID-19 may suggest other mechanisms in the human immune system, besides antibodies, may also help reduce the severity of the disease, researchers said.
A Sinovac spokesman was not immediately available for comment. CEO Yin Weidong said on Thursday in a program broadcast by state-owned company CGTN, the company is “fully capable” of using current research and manufacturing capabilities to develop, if necessary, a new vaccine against variants to develop.
He also said that the process will take much less time than developing CoronaVac.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)