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* UK expresses concern over South African variant
* Mutations include significant changes in spike protein
* The changes could lead to “evading immune protection”
* Vaccine manufacturers are testing their injections against new variants (refoundations with citations, details from scientists)
LONDON, Jan.4 (Reuters) – British scientists expressed concern on Monday that the COVID-19 vaccines being deployed in Britain might not be able to protect against a new variant of the coronavirus which has emerged in South Africa and spread internationally.
Britain and South Africa have detected new, more transmissible variants of the virus causing COVID-19 in recent weeks, which have led to an increase in cases. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday he was now very concerned about the variant identified in South Africa.
Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while the two variants have new features in common, the one found in South Africa “has a number of additional mutations … which are of concern” .
He said these included more extensive changes in a key part of the virus known as the spike protein – which the virus uses to infect human cells – and “can make the virus less sensitive to the immune response. triggered by vaccines “.
Lawrence Young, virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, also noted that the South African variant has “multiple cutting edge mutations.”
“The accumulation of more peak mutations in the South African variant is of more concern and could lead to some evasion of immune protection,” he said.
Scientists including BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin and John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said they were testing vaccines against the new variants and said they could make the necessary changes. in about six weeks.
Public Health England said there is currently no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines will not protect against mutated virus variants. The UK Department of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The richest countries in the world have started immunizing their populations to protect themselves against a disease that has killed 1.8 million people and crushed the global economy.
There are currently 60 vaccine candidates in trials, including those already in deployment from AstraZeneca and Oxford, Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Sputnik V in Russia and Sinopharm in China.
Scientists claim that the South African and British variants are associated with a higher viral load, which means a higher concentration of viral particles in patients’ bodies, which may contribute to increased transmission.
Bell of Oxford, which advises the UK government’s working group on vaccines, said on Sunday he believed the vaccines would work on the UK variant, but said there was a “big question mark” as to whether they would work on the South African variant.
Sahin of BioNTech told Germany ‘Spiegel in an interview published Friday that their vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to instruct the human immune system to fight the virus, should be able to protect against the UK variant. .
“We are testing whether our vaccine can also neutralize this variant and will know more soon,” he said. (Reporting by Kate Holton, Kate Kelland, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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