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TPfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine appears to work as well against a rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus first identified in the UK as against earlier forms of the pathogen, the companies reported in a study Wednesday.
The article by the company’s scientists, which has not yet been peer reviewed, is a welcome signal that existing vaccines do not appear to be weakened by the variant in question, dubbed B.1.1 .7. Already, scientists had tested the Pfizer vaccine against one of the variant’s key mutations and found that the neutralizing power of the immunization was not affected.
Scientists are also testing vaccines against other variants of concern, which contain different mutations that, in lab experiments, have shown they can, to some extent, help the virus escape existing antibodies that recognize and target the virus. virus. These mutations appear in variants first seen in South Africa and Brazil, which also appear to be more transmissible than earlier iterations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The variants in South Africa and Brazil have raised concerns that it may be easier to re-infect people who have already recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies to the virus, although other studies – notably s ‘there is an impact on how vaccines work – are ongoing.
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In the new study, the researchers designed what are called pseudoviruses (it is more convenient to work with laboratory experiments than real live specimens of dangerous viruses like SARS-2) to have the full suite of mutations as B.1.1.7. They then tested blood taken from 16 people who had received the variant vaccine, and found that it could neutralize the variant as well as an earlier form of the virus. “These data … make it unlikely that the B.1.1.7 line will escape” vaccine protection, the researchers wrote.
Experts say some of the newer variants may not respond as well to existing vaccines as other forms of the virus. But they point out that vaccines generate incredibly robust immune responses, so they can withstand some drop in potency without losing their ability to protect people from Covid-19.
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“The effectiveness of the vaccine is so good and so high that we have a little cushion,” Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Biden administration, said Tuesday in an interview with the editor. by JAMA.
Ultimately, the virus is expected to detect enough important mutations that vaccine makers need to update their immunizations, a process that experts say would likely take weeks, if not months, and no years.
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