JOHANNESBURG, January 5 (Reuters) – A variant of the coronavirus that was first detected in South Africa is unlikely to ignore the immunizing effects of vaccines, a researcher studying it told Reuters.
British scientists on Monday expressed concern that COVID-19 vaccines may not be able to protect against the variant identified by South African genomics scientists that has spread internationally.
Richard Lessells, an expert in infectious diseases at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, who played a key role in identifying the variant known as 501Y.V2, said he understands that the comments are not based is not on new data but on shared information.
“They express the same concern that we expressed when we first released this information, that the pattern of mutations did worry us,” Lessells said Tuesday.
South African researchers are studying the effects of mutations in the variant, including whether natural immunity to exposure to older variants provides protection against reinfection by the new variant.
The preliminary results of the studies may be ready by the end of this week, Lessells said.
Scientists have identified more than 20 mutations in the 501Y.V2 variant, including a number of proteins that the virus uses to infect human cells.
One of these is at a site that is thought to be important for the neutralization of antibodies and not found in another coronavirus variant, Lessells said.
“Why we were a little cautious in identifying concerns about the (efficacy of) vaccines is that for many of the vaccines it is considered a broad immune response,” he said.
The broad response could target different parts of the ear protein, not just one, he added.
“Therefore, we think that although these mutations may have an effect, it most likely will not negate the effect of the vaccines,” Lessells said.
The South African Ministry of Health acknowledged questions from Reuters, but did not immediately respond. The country has recorded more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 30,000 deaths, most on the African continent.
Public Health England said there was no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines would not protect against mutated coronavirus variants.
BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said in an interview last week that the vaccine of his company, which uses messenger RNA to command the human immune system to fight the virus, should protect against the British variant. (Reported by Alexander Winning Editing by Joe Bavier and Alexander Smith)