It seems that a mutant strain of the new coronavirus discovered in South Africa can repel antibodies from individuals previously recovered from COVID-19, which means that as the new strain becomes widespread, our more people may become repeatedly infected. .
A group of South African scientists made this discovery in an article published by the South African National Institute of Communicable Diseases earlier this week. In it, researchers describe how they studied blood samples from a small group of people who developed COVID-19 but eventually recovered. When the human body recovers from a disease, it produces a protein called an antibody to identify it in the future and protect it from the bacteria or virus that caused it to become ill. (These disease-causing microorganisms are known as pathogens.) This means that people who have been ill with COVID-19 should in theory have antibodies that recognize the pathogen that causes them and neutralize them if they become infected again.
According to the authors of the article, half of the blood samples from the patients they tested did not have the antibodies to protect them against the 501Y.V2 strain of the new coronavirus identified in South Africa last month. Although this was a small study and more research needs to be done, the initial results are not favorable.
It can not only impair the ability of the human population to develop natural immunity, but can also impair the efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Both companies distribute mRNA vaccines, which are different from traditional vaccines that train the immune system to develop antibodies against pathogens by injecting attenuated or dead versions of the disease-causing drugs into the body. in contrast, mRNA vaccines inject a synthetic single-stranded molecule RNA that infects our own cells and produces the protein that grows at the ‘peak’ on the outside of the coronavirus. The presence of this protein in the body is then recognized as an invader and the immune system learns to identify and protect against the coronavirus as an enemy.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, both train the body to recognize a protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as Spike. Ear is the protein that helps the virus enter human cells and looks like small pins protruding from the virus’ sphere, like the thorns protruding around a sea eagle. Unfortunately, the South African mutation alters the protein, which means that it can affect the effectiveness of the vaccine.
The South African tribe is not the only one to be concerned. There is a new strain in Brazil that, according to scientists, has ‘changes in key positions’, in ways that could harm the effectiveness of antibodies against the disease. Then there is a strain in the UK known as B117 which, although not more deadly than previous strains, is more transmissible.
“I think transferable is definitely the word to go along with, because it emphasizes what we do know and what we do not know,” said Dr. Dylan Morris, a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA, told Salon earlier this month about the British tribe. “Even if the severity of the disease does not increase, or even if it decreases with a small amount, ‘more transmissible’ at this stage of the pandemic is a very narrow thing, because it can lead to faster spread and faster exponential growth. “