NIPH: Vaccine May Provide Mutant Benefits

– Changes that cause the virus to fully or partially escape the immune system or become resistant to the vaccine, can occur at any time, but will have a greater advantage in a population where many are vaccinated, writes department head Line Vold of the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in an email to Dagbladet.

In Norway, there have been 24 cases of suspected more infectious variants of the coronavirus, 23 cases of a variant from the United Kingdom and one of a variant from South Africa.

FHI’s director of infection control Geir Bukholm recently told Dagbladet that there is currently no reason to believe that the vaccine affects different variants of the virus differently.

– The first considerations that have been made around this, in which the changes in the protein of the virus itself are analyzed, do not provide evidence to say that the effect of the vaccine will be weakened for any of these variants, Bukholm said.

-Ren Darwinism

If there are large enough changes in the virus, there is still a theoretical possibility that the vaccine will lose its effect.

– There will be mutations all the time, we hope so. There is still a development of this virus, Bukholm said.

The vaccine itself can affect this process. Widespread vaccination can, in theory, lead to any variant of the vaccine resistant virus becoming more widespread.

Warns after wave of English infection

This is also confirmed by department head Line Vold at FHI at Dagbladet.

– Viruses and bacteria change all the time and will adapt to the environment. For example, through mutations. If the changes give them an advantage in some way, for example by escaping the immune system, they will take over. Pure Darwinism.

– You must be prepared

How quickly a fully or partially vaccine-resistant virus variant could become generalized depends on several factors, according to Vold.

– Among other things, what infection control measures exist, whether the virus has also changed infectivity, how is the infection situation and more. It will take months or years, he writes.

The Director of Infection Control, Geir Bukholm, has previously emphasized that we have not seen the effect of the vaccine on the selection of virus variants.

– We must be prepared for that to happen, and then we must be able to adjust the vaccine.

What this adjustment implies in practice will depend on the mutation in question.

– If there is a change for which the immune system of the vaccinated person is not ready, it will probably mean that they will have to be completely vaccinated again. If there is a partial change, there may be other solutions, Bukholm said.

– Can be extended

Chief Physician Andreas Lind is Unit Director of the Microbiology Department of the Virus Department at Oslo University Hospital. He has been actively working on coronavirus antibody testing since early last year.

Lind says that widespread vaccination of the population can cause the virus to change to accommodate the vaccine, as can bacteria that develop resistance to antibiotics.

– Any treatment against a virus can give rise to variants that prevent the treatment from gaining advantage. The vaccine induces antibodies and one may end up selecting variants where the antibodies do not impact as well. Then new mutants can be propagated, he tells Dagbladet.

– Be aware of this symptom

However, this mutation comes at a cost to the virus and can help make it less contagious, according to Lind. The cause lies in the part of the virus that the vaccine targets.

– When the virus is forced to change in the area we call spike protein, which is affected by the Pfizer vaccine, it can worsen binding and is therefore less contagious.

The same goes for the Moderna and Oxford vaccines, according to the superior.

The spike protein is critical to the virus’s ability to bind to cells in the body. The English variant of the virus has several changes in the amino acids of this protein. Therefore, Lind believes that the probability that the vaccine will lead to further spread of infectious variants is low.

– The same happens with bacteria: when bacteria become resistant, they can also worsen their division. But a vaccine can certainly produce new mutants that would not otherwise spread.

FHI: three main theories

– Zero stress

Lind emphasizes that he believes that all the vaccines in question can easily be adjusted according to new mutations.

– This is done with the flu vaccine every year. There is no stress. In three, four or five years, the corona can be a virus of the common cold, to which you can vaccinate especially exposed annually. Maybe you can even make a combination vaccine that affects both covid-19 and flu.

Lind’s reasoning has been presented to the head of department, Line Vold, at FHI. She comments the following:

– The explanation given here is for the coronavirus and vaccines that target the area that is important both for the way the virus binds to our mucous membranes and for the effect of the vaccine.

– This means, as you say, that the changes could make the virus less contagious. In theory, it may also become more contagious.

In the NIPH risk assessment of December 27, one can read that the NIPH is closely monitoring several variants of the virus, including the “tour bus variant”, the “Trondheim variant” and the “South African variant.”

– It is a variant of the virus whose spread is extremely difficult to limit, if it starts to spread, Deputy Health Director Espen Rostrup Nakstad previously said about the British variant of Dagbladet.