Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are effective against Lambda variant of coronavirus that emerged in Peru

Since Covid-19 pandemic, scientists knew that it would not be long before the appearance of different new variants, taking into account the characteristics of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus as a natural mechanism in its evolution, as happens with all viruses.

Some variants are “advantageous” for the pathogen and they can make the virus more transmissible and develop more severe cases or reduce the protection offered by vaccines or escape the defenses that the human body develops after having the infection. There are also variations that have no impact on the pandemic. But delays in vaccination have been a key factor in creating more opportunities for more variants with higher public health risk to emerge and have an impact.

Since April, the world has been paying more attention to the Delta variant, which was originally detected in India, but now it is hitting Europe more and forced to delay measures to lift various restrictions. Meanwhile, in South America, the Lambda variant was increasingly recorded in patient samples, even with the limitations to conduct genomic studies in the region. It is believed to have originated in Peru last summer, has grown rapidly and now accounts for nearly 82% of the South American country’s cases.

Doctors monitoring its growth fear that it will spread more easily than other strains, including the Indian version which has wreaked havoc around the world. “If the Lambda variant is formally shown to be more transmissible, it should be considered a cause for concern. In several countries, the Lambda variant competes with Gamma, which is already seen as a variant of concern. The two behave similarly, ”the doctor said. Pablo Tsukayama, a microbial genomics researcher at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, who was part of the team that detected the Lamba variant in Peru.

Jairo Méndez Rico, Advisor on Emerging Viral Diseases at the Pan American Health Organization, said: “At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that it is more aggressive than the other variants. It is possible that he has a higher rate of contagion, but we have to work more ”.

And in a ray of hope, scientists discovered that the two Pfizer vaccines like Moderna’s are effective in reducing the risk of serious illnesses caused by inflammation. This is what researchers at the Grossman School of Medicine at New York University say in a scientific article published in a pre-publication of BioRxiv, which showed that if the variant “exhibits partial resistance” to the antibodies created by the vaccines, the resistance “is not likely to cause a significant loss of protection against infection”.

The authors wrote: “The results suggest that the vaccines currently in use will continue to protect against the lambda variant and that monoclonal antibody therapy will continue to be effective. The results underscore the importance of widespread adoption of vaccination, which will protect people from disease, reduce the spread of the virus, and slow the emergence of new variants.

Last month he became known thanks to a study emerged in Argentina, that the Russian vaccine Sputnik V is effective against Lambda. The work was carried out by the Country Project, the Infectious Diseases Biobank and the INBIRS Institute of Conicet and UBA. “The results of our study mean that vaccines like Sputnik V continue to provide protection against the Lambda variant. The rest is under evaluation. Hopefully this is also the case. But until the tests are done, this cannot be said ”, said Infobae researcher Gabriela Tusk, du Conicet, one of the authors of the book.

Regarding Lambda, the American experts observed an increase in infectivity mediated by the spike protein Lambda which was even greater than that of D614G (line B) or of the Alpha and Gamma variants. Compared to the wild type (line A), the neutralization was reduced by 3.05 times for the Lambda variant, while it was 2.33 times for the Gamma variant and 2.03 times for the Alpha variant.

Likewise, they found that the Coronavac vaccine is not as effective at providing protection. “We used our pseudotyping virus neutralization test described above to determine the impact of the Lambda variant in neutralizing vaccine-induced antibody responses against inactivated CoronaVac virus. Our data show that the mutations present in the peak protein of the Lambda variant confer greater infectivity and escape the neutralizing antibodies caused by the inactivated virus vaccine CoronaVac ”, they assured.

“These data reinforce the idea that mass vaccination campaigns in countries with a high circulation of SARS-CoV-2 must be accompanied by strict genomic surveillance allowing the identification of new isolates carrying peaks of mutation and disease. ‘immunological studies aimed at determining the impact of these mutations on immune leakage and the advance of vaccines,’ they added.

Chilean scientists who studied blood samples taken from healthcare workers originally found that the Lambda variant carried the L452Q mutation. The mutation is similar to the L452R mutation in the Delta and Epsilon variants which the researchers say makes it more infectious. Sequencing in Peru and neighboring Chile, where most cases of the strain have been recorded, is poor compared to the UK and US. The strain accounts for just 0.3 percent of infections in the United States and less than 0.1 percent in Britain. Kirsty Short, a virologist at the University of Queensland, said more research was needed before classifying Lambda as more infectious than the Delta variant.

There is currently the characterization of Variants of Interest (VOI) and Variants of Concern (VOC) that help prioritize global research and monitoring. That is, the variants of concern (VOCs) are associated with one or more of the following changes: (1) increased transmissibility or detrimental change in epidemiology; (2) increase in virulence or change in clinical presentation, or (3) decrease in the effectiveness of social, public health or diagnostic and vaccination measures.

However, the Lambda variant is labeled VOI, as it meets the following characteristics: generic changes that will affect transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; Yes can cause significant community transmission or multiple clusters of COVID-19; suggesting an emerging risk to global public health.

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