Pfizer / BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine appears to be effective against a “key mutation” in the British and South African variants of the coronavirus, according to the results of work released on Friday by the BioNTech laboratory. “The antibodies of people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine effectively neutralize Sars-CoV-2 with a key mutation that is also found in two highly transmissible strains” identified in Great Britain and South Africa, says the laboratory in its press release.
One of the limits of this brief study, emphasized by the authors themselves, is that it does not cover all the mutations present in these variants. It is therefore not sufficient to conclude that the efficacy of the vaccine will be the same against the variants as against the classical virus.
Positive results to put into perspective
The emergence in the United Kingdom and South Africa of these two new variants of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus worries the international community because of its higher transmissibility, according to the first data. In France, two high-risk clusters of the British variant have been detected in Brittany and Île-de-France.
The new variant includes in particular a mutation, called N501Y, in the Spike protein (spicule) of the coronavirus, the tip which is on its surface and allows it to attach to human cells to penetrate them, therefore playing a key role. in viral infection.
To test the effectiveness of the vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech teams associated with the University of Medicine of Texas developed a coronavirus carrying this mutation and then took blood samples from twenty people who had received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, one of the Covid-19 vaccines currently distributed in many countries. They found “no reduction in neutralizing activity” vis-à-vis the virus carrying the mutation compared to the classic virus, according to the statement.
The authors said results were limited because this test was not done on “the full set of Spike proteins found on rapidly spreading strains in the UK or South Africa”. Experts expressed cautious optimism about the results.
New changes to be expected
“This is good news, mainly because it’s not bad news,” said Stephen Evans, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “If the opposite result had been found, that the vaccine did not seem to be effective against the variation of the virus studied, it would have been bad and very worrying. ”
German lab BioNTech said last month it had the technology to produce a new vaccine against new variants of Sars-CoV-2 in six weeks.
Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, said there was cause for optimism that messenger RNA vaccines could prove effective against many carrier variants of mutations. “There will be other new mutations and we will have to carefully monitor the situation by repeating this type of study on the new variants as they appear,” she said.
The EU announced on Friday that it had reached an agreement to double its supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine which will be increased to a total of 600 million doses.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
