JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A variant of coronavirus first detected in South Africa is unlikely to completely reverse the immunizing effects of vaccines, a researcher studying it told Reuters.
British scientists expressed concern on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines may not be able to protect against the variant identified by scientists in South Africa and which has spread internationally.
Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, who played a central role in identifying the 501Y.V2 variant, said his understanding was that the comments were not based on data. us, but on common data. information.
“They express the same concerns we expressed when we first released this information, that the mutation model has given us concern,” Lessells said Tuesday.
South African researchers are studying the effects of mutations in the variant, including whether natural immunity to exposure to older versions of the virus provides protection against reinfection through the new variant.
Preliminary results of these studies could be ready by the end of this week, Lessells said.
Scientists have identified more than 20 mutations in the 501Y.V2 variant, including several in the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells.
One of them is in a site that is thought to be important for neutralizing antibodies and is not found in another variant of coronavirus found in the UK, Lessells said.
Why I was a little cautious about highlighting concerns about the (effectiveness) of vaccines is that for many vaccines they are thought to induce a fairly broad immune response, he said.
This broad response could target different parts of the spike protein, not just one, he added.
Therefore, we believe that while these mutations may have some effect, it is very unlikely to completely reverse the effect of vaccines, Lessells said.
The South African Ministry of Health acknowledged the questions from Reuters, but did not give an immediate answer. The country has more than 1.1 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 30,000 deaths, most on the African continent.
Public Health England said there was no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines would not protect against mutated coronavirus variants.
BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin said in an interview last week that his company’s vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to train the human immune system to fight the virus, should be able to protect against the British version.