The new variant of SARS-CoV-2, said to have originated in south-east England, has raised concerns about the effectiveness of vaccines developed to provide immunity against coronavirus disease (Covid-19). According to a CNN report, Pfizer Inc. has begun work on generating data to analyze how well blood samples from people inoculated with its vaccine, BNT162b2, against Covid-19 “may be able to neutralize the new strain of the UK”.
What are the chances that the Covid-19 vaccines will not work against a new strain of virus?
Earlier Monday, US President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 vaccine czar said the chances of a set of mutations completely altering the structures against which vaccines induce an immune response are “extremely low. “. During a press conference, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific advisor for Trump Operation Warp Speed’s vaccine program, told reporters that he hopes Covid-19 injections from Pfizer and Moderna will be effective against the new variant of the coronavirus. found in Great Britain.
Meanwhile, Moderna said the biotech firm hopes vaccine-induced immunity against Covid-19 will protect against variants found in the UK. He added that the company will carry out additional tests in the coming weeks to “confirm this expectation.” The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed only the two Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer / BioNtech and Moderna.
Some researchers who are analyzing the genome of the new variant have suggested that there may be “modest reductions” in the efficacy of the vaccine due to “antigenic drift.” Trevor Bedford, associate professor in the division of vaccines and infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told CNN that there could be “some modest impact on the efficacy of the vaccine, which would not be good, but I don’t think be it. ” break the vaccine. “
In a series of tweets, Bedford had said that the vaccine developers will likely need a process in the coming years to update the spike variant used in the vaccine to better match circulating viruses. He also suggested connecting immunization registries to genomic surveillance to identify variants involved in breakthrough infections.
NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr. VK Paul said Tuesday that the new strain of the virus has no impact, as of now, on the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines developed in India and around the world. . India has suspended all flights to and from the UK, from 11:59 p.m. on December 22 to 11:59 p.m. on December 31 after several countries announced a ban on inbound travel from the UK.
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