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AGI – On the Covid-19 variant isolated first in England and now also in Italy, everyone seems to agree: it is worrying, but the efficacy of vaccines should not be compromised.
After the alarm triggered by the vertiginous increase of infections in Britain, doctors, scientists and virologists say they are “apprehensive”. “If it is true that the variant determines a greater diffusion, the consequence will be at the beginning an increase in infections, then in intensive care hospitalizations and finally in deathsMassimo Antonelli, director of resuscitation at the Gemelli Polyclinic and a member of the Scientific Technical Committee, said in an interview with Corriere della Sera. “There will be more pressure on hospitals,” anticipates Antonelli, who will be one of the first Italian doctors to receive the vaccine. perhaps as early as December 27, “Fortunately, judging by the available data, the efficacy of these vaccines should not be compromised, but it will be months before we have a percentage of the population that is immune and therefore we can feel insurance “,
“Those who have seen Covid-19 up close cannot back down,” he adds. At the time “hospitals hold up, but we’re very concerned for the next few weeks. If the virus transmission rate does not drop, we run the risk of a new crisis ”. The virologist Paola Stefanelli, from the Instituto Superior de Salud, also confirms to the Repubblica that in the English case “it is a variant, a strain that has several mutations in its genome and some also affect the spike protein, one of those linking the human immune system “although by no means” is it excluded that a virus makes mutations “because” various variants of the coronavirus have also been identified, such as the Spanish one, which, however, have not been associated with changes in virulence and lethality “.
So, he adds, “We’ll see if, apart from the English framework, the variant will have what is called biological success, that is, if the mutations will make it better able to survive. Other variants of the past have disappeared ”.
Regarding the vaccine, according to Stefanelli “at the moment there is no scientific evidence of ineffectiveness (in the face of the mutation, ed) and we cannot even say that one vaccine can work better than another”.
In an interview with La Stampa, however, Professor Giorgio Palù, a virologist at the University of Padua and president of Aifa, the Italian Medicines Agency, openly says that “there is no evidence that this mutation makes the virus more lethal “. or allows you to escape vaccines ”and that All this turmoil over the English variant of the virus “is not justified by scientific data: they are genomic sequences, but there is no biology behind it ”.
A picture, therefore, “the son of an alarmist vision of the pandemic” because “so far none of these mutations has been correlated with an increase in virulence, that is, with the ability of the virus to do more damage, to kill more ”. And confirm: “We need to achieve immunization between 65% and 70% of the populationIt is the only way to protect even those who do not get vaccinated from infection.
In an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore, the epidemiologist Massimo Ciccozzi, head of the Unit for Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Bio-Medical Campus of the University of Rome, even uses a reassuring tone: “We must not be afraid of mutations. It is through mutations that the adaptation of the virus to humans is favored. And this one in Britain is not the first, ”he says.
“At the moment, a greater speed of infection is assumed, which is what worries the most, but there is no evidence of a lesser response from the vaccine. We have to do a molecular surveillance and wait for the laboratory tests ”, he points out. Then he concludes: “This is a coronavirus and the mutations are much slower because the genome is much larger than that of the flu. Although the mutation affects the genome, the Spike protein does not act on the surface and therefore does not affect the effectiveness of vaccination”.
For Il Fatto Quotidiano, Federico Giorgi, geneticist at the University of Bologna and co-author of a specific study on the case, declares that “this SarsCov2 mutation (M501Y) has been studied since October. It was already circulating in the US and Australia, as well as the UK ”and that the mutation in question is currently the fourth most widespread in Spike protein.
Giorgi has no doubts about the efficacy of vaccines. “The spike protein is made up of 1,250 building blocks, the amino acids,” he explains, “and the M501Y mutation is just one building block. Generally, it is not enough for a vaccine to be ineffective. ”
While in an interview with the Domani newspaper, Professor Massimo Galli, from Sacco in Milan, states: “Given the mutation of the genome of a virus, no one can say with certainty whether the newly discovered vaccines will be useful or not, but this time I say – with the benefit of the doubt – that I am moderately optimistic ”and“ there is a good chance that Incoming prophylaxis will also protect against the English strain”.
