Vials of the Pfizer BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at the Miguel Hidalgo Centenario Hospital in Aguascalientes, Mexico, on Thursday, January 14, 2020. The number of confirmed cases in the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico is 1.57 million as of 7:30 AM Mexico City according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News.
Photographer: Mauricio Palos / Bloomberg
Photographer: Mauricio Palos / Bloomberg
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE has built the case that the Covid-19 vaccine will protect against the new variant of coronavirus that has appeared in the UK, with the results of another laboratory study.
That Previous work at the University of Texas Medical Branch, the results published Wednesday, showed that antibodies in the blood of vaccinated people were able to neutralize a version of the mutant virus that was created in the laboratory. The study was published on the prepress server BioRxiv before peer review.
Unlike the previous study, which focused on a crucial mutation, the new research tested all 10 mutations located on the top protein of the virus, which helps it bind to host cells. It is a promising result, but not conclusive, as scientists continue to monitor closely whether virus mutations may necessitate vaccine adjustment.
The antibodies in the blood of 16 volunteers from a previous German vaccine study were as effective against the mutant strain created in the laboratory as they were against the original virus. The result “makes it very unlikely that viruses of the UK variant will escape” from vaccine protection, wrote the research team, led by BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin.
However, the BioNTech team is ready to adapt the vaccine if necessary in the future, he said. This may be necessary to protect against other strains, based on evidence, another variant that has emerged in South Africa may be more difficult to verify.
A separate study on this strain raised concerns. The scientists found that half of the blood samples from a handful of patients who already had Covid-19 did not have the antibodies needed to protect against the South African variant, which is spreading around the globe.
The findings, from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in South Africa, suggest that those individuals can no longer be protected from re-infection. In the other half, antibody levels were reduced and the risk of reinfection could not be determined, according to the institute. The findings were not evaluated by colleagues and were based on a small sample size.
Separately, a third study by a team at Rockefeller University also highlighted the importance of closely monitoring the effectiveness of vaccines against variants. The team tested mutations found in variants first discovered in the UK and South Africa, as well as a third in Brazil, in blood samples from 20 volunteers who obtained either the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or a similar vaccine from Moderna Inc. In their test, donor blood samples were not as effective in neutralizing variants.
Vaccines may need to be updated regularly to avoid the potential loss of clinical efficacy, the Rockefeller team wrote. Like the other studies, their work was presented in pre-print before peer review.
(Updates with the Rockefeller study in the last two paragraphs)