By Alexander Winning
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Research by South African scientists indicates that antibodies caused by exposure to the dominant coronavirus variant in the country can prevent infection by other variants, scientists said on Wednesday.
The findings in laboratory studies offer hope that COVID-19 vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant identified only last year can protect against multiple variants spreading in different parts of the world.
The more contagious variant caused a second wave of infections in South Africa which peaked in January and apparently spread to many other countries in Africa and other continents.
‘We used plasma … from people infected with the 501Y.V2 in the latest wave, and we used it against the first-wave virus, … what we found was that it could neutralize, “OK not as good as it could not neutralize itself, but it’s not bad at all, ‘said Alex Sigal of the Africa Health Research Institute at a news conference.
Sigal said vaccines designed with the 501Y.V2 variant in mind “may be cross-protective against other variants, … it gives you an idea of how this problem of variants can be solved”.
Penny Moore, a professor at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, said the antibody response of the 501Y.V2 variant was only tripled against the first-wave virus, while the response of the first-wave virus was reduced ninefold is opposite 501Y .V2.
“It’s not that the antibodies activated by 501Y.V2 are somehow magical, but that there is a delivery … but unlike the antibodies caused by the original variant, it’s like they’re somehow a little bit more, “she said at the same briefing.
Salim Abdool Karim, a leading government adviser on COVID-19, said major vaccine manufacturers, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, had already made vaccinations based on the 501Y.V2 variant. Moderna has already adapted his shot and placed it in human studies, he added.
He predicted that by the end of 2021 most vaccine manufacturers would have adjusted their shots, ‘not because they are specifically concerned about the virus coming from South Africa … but because key mutations in the 501Y.V2 actually also in many others occur. variant “.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said the research was encouraging and that monitoring genomics had helped the government respond to the pandemic.
South Africa has recorded by far the most COVID-19 infections and deaths on the African continent, with 1.5 million cases and more than 50,000 deaths so far.
(Report by Alexander Winning; Edited by Elaine Hardcastle)