Two Covishield vaccine jabs over 80% effective against B.1.617 COVID-19 variant: UK Study

As India is battling hard against the second wave of COVID-19, handling variant  B.1.617.2 has emerged out as the main challenge for the medical fraternity as it has taken numerous lives in the largest democratic nation. Now, a UK study has confirmed that two doses from either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or the Pfizer vaccine are over 80 percent effective in preventing infection from the B.1.617.2 variant of COVID-19. The Oxford/AstraZeneca two-dose vaccine is also being produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) as Covishield and is being administered among the adult population in India to protect against COVID-19.

The UK findings are said to be based on data from Public Health England (PHE) and have also revealed that the two doses provide 87 percent protection from the B.117 variant, first discovered in the Kent region of England and also considered highly transmissible. According to ‘The Telegraph’ newspaper, the latest study's findings were presented to a meeting of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) this week.

B.1.617.2 variant is clearly growing-  Dr. Jeffrey Barrett

The latest PHE statistics released earlier this week show that case numbers of the B1.617.2 variant had risen by 2,111 over the past week to hit 3,424 cases across the country. "I think it's clearly growing, which anyone can see from the numbers as they are reported week by week,” Dr. Jeffrey Barrett, director of COVID-19 genomics at the Sanger Institute, told the BBC as reported by PTI. 

"If I had to put a guess today it would be 20 or 30 percent rather than 50 percent (more infectious than the Kent variant). But there is still uncertainty, 50 percent might be a reasonable worst-case scenario," added Dr. Jeffrey Barrett in reference to the rate of transmissibility of the variant of concern (VOC).

Meanwhile, PHE officials are also closely monitoring a variant under investigation (VUI) in the Yorkshire region of England, which is showing high transmissibility. It comes as the National Health Service (NHS) further expanded its vaccination programme and announced that it will open bookings for people aged 32 and 33, adding to the over-34s cohort, from Saturday. NHS England said that the third expansion of eligibility in just one week comes as over four in 10 adults have now had both jabs.

WHO flags B.1.617 as 'Variant of concern'

WHO has classified the B.1.617 variant of the Coronavirus as a variant of global concern. As of 11 May, over 4500 sequences have been uploaded to GISAID and assigned to B.1.617 from 44 countries in all six WHO regions, and WHO has received reports of detections from five additional countries. WHO stated that the B.1.617 sublineages appear to have higher rates of transmission, including observed rapid increases in prevalence in multiple countries.

Meanwhile, the daily rise in COVID-19 cases in India remained below the 3 lakh-mark for the sixth consecutive day, with 2.57 lakh new coronavirus cases recorded in a single day, the Union health ministry said on Saturday. With the fresh cases, India’s tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,62,89,290. The death toll due to the disease rose to 2,95,525 with 4,194 fresh fatalities, the ministry data showed.

(Image Credits: AP/PTI)

(Story Inputs: PTI)