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reThe chief virologist of the Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, is concerned about the mutation of the coronavirus reported in Britain. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t look good,” he wrote in anticipation of the British government’s release of data on Tuesday night. On twitter. Documents from the British health authority underscored the assumption that the virus mutation is significantly more contagious than previously occurring variants.
On Monday, Drosten saw little reason to be alarmed at the mutation: “I’m not that worried about it right now. However, I am, like everyone else, in an unclear information situation, ”he said on Deutschlandfunk. The virologist assumed that the mutated virus could already be found in Germany. “It is already in Italy, in Holland, in Belgium, in Denmark, even in Australia, why shouldn’t it be in Germany?” Said the Berlin researcher.
Travel restrictions until January 6
Due to the new variant of the pathogen, the federal government is further restricting travel from Great Britain and South Africa. The transport of passengers from there by plane, boat, train or bus to Germany is largely prohibited from this Tuesday to transport companies, according to a regulation of the Ministry of Health published this Monday in the Federal Bulletin. It is valid until January 6. The department head, Jens Spahn (CDU), said late at night on Twitter that this was being done “as a precautionary measure” until we learned more about the coronavirus mutations reported in both countries.
As a first protective measure, the Ministry of Transport had already banned almost all flights from Britain to Germany from Monday to December 31. The federal government announced new restrictions on entry from South Africa over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Biontech boss Ugur Sahin was confident that his company’s corona vaccine would also work against the new mutation of the virus. From a scientific point of view, the probability is high, he told the German Press Agency. “We have already tested the vaccine against 20 other virus variants with other mutations. The immune response produced by our vaccine has always inactivated all forms of the virus. “
The virus has now mutated a bit stronger, Sahin said. “Now we have to test it experimentally. This will take about two weeks. However, we are confident that this will not significantly affect the mechanism of action. “
The antigen that the Mainz-based company and its US partner Pfizer use for the vaccine consists of more than 1,270 amino acids, according to Sahin. Nine of them have now mutated, so not even one percent. “Our vaccine sees all the protein and elicits multiple immune responses. As a result, we have so many docking sites that it is difficult for the virus to escape. But that does not mean that the new variant is harmless. ” The Biontech vaccine based on the mRNA of the messenger molecule can, in principle, be rapidly adapted to new variants.
According to Sahin, the comparatively long duration of the EU approval process had no impact on the number of vaccine doses the Mainz-based company produced. “We had already planned a division of the doses of the vaccine in advance and we adhered to that. What has changed, of course, is the amount we can deliver this year. But overall, the amount of cans we promised to the EU will not change. “
He called the EU approval for the Biontech vaccine, which took place on Monday, “historically by far the fastest drug approval.” Biontech not only had to answer questions from EU authorities, but also many questions from individual countries. “This made the process more arduous, but it was simply part of taking care of the procedures in the EU correctly step by step.”
Neither he nor his wife, Biontech co-founder and chief medical officer, Özlem Türeci, have so far been vaccinated with their company’s active ingredient. “But we want that as soon as we have a proper basis for it,” he said. “It is important to us that we provide our production employees with the correct doses of vaccine.” The objective is to guarantee the uninterrupted manufacture of vaccines in the Biontech production network for the next twelve months. “Therefore, we are considering using a small lot that is independent of the EU quota for this purpose.”
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