Dr Fauci says Covid vaccines can be easily adapted for new variants, with drugmakers working on boosters

Pfizer and Moderna’s current Covid-19 vaccines can be easily adapted to target new strains of the virus, something drugmakers are already working on, White House health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday.

New strains of the coronavirus have emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, which has worried scientists. While it’s not surprising that the virus mutates, researchers are quickly trying to determine what the changes might mean for recently developed life-saving vaccines and treatments for the disease.

Some early results published on the bioRxiv preprint server, which have not yet been peer reviewed, indicate that the variant identified in South Africa, what scientists call the B.1.351 strain, may escape antibodies treatments provided by some coronavirus treatments and may reduce the effectiveness of the current range of vaccines available. Fauci told CNN in an interview that she is very similar to the new strain found in Brazil.

However, there is good news: The new mRNA technology used to make the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna makes it easier to adapt to the new strains, Fauci said. He added that drugmakers are already working on so-called “booster” shots that will target the variant found in South Africa, which appears to be more problematic than the others.

“We’re already trying to stay a step or two ahead of the game, so if in fact we have a situation where the South African strain is prevalent here – it’s here, but it’s definitely not. not dominant – you really want to get in front of him from a protection standpoint, ”Fauci said. “You’re going to want to have a vaccine that specifically treats this strain.”

Earlier Wednesday, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said federal agencies would collaborate to study the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines against mutated strains of the virus. While the approved products remain very effective against the B.1.1.7 strain first identified in the UK, “things get a little more problematic” with the B.1.351 strain.

Even so, both vaccines have been shown to be around 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 in clinical trials, allowing a bit of a cushion where the vaccines will still work even if one of the variants reduces their effectiveness, said the infectious disease expert. .

Testing the effectiveness of booster vaccines does not require starting from scratch, Fauci said. ” in place.

“You don’t have to go to trial for 30,000 people or 40,000 people,” Fauci said. “You work with the FDA and you can tie information from one trial to another. At the end of the day, we’re already there.”

Moderna announced Monday that its Covid-19 vaccine may be less effective against the B.1.351 strain in South Africa, and that the company is accelerating work on a booster to guard against this variant “as a precaution”.

Pfizer said on Tuesday that the company, along with German drug maker BioNTech, would also develop a recall, according to a Reuters report. A company spokesperson was not immediately available to respond to Fauci’s comments.

– CNBC’s Will Feuer and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.