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Updated January 9th, 2021 at 17:41 IST

Pfizer says its vaccine works against key mutations in COVID-19 variants

Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine against the COVID-19 virus is effective even against one of the mutations present in the new contagious variant

Reported by: Akanksha Arora
Pfizer
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On January 8, Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine against the COVID-19 virus is effective even against one of the mutations present in the new contagious variants which has been detected in Britain and South Africa. The UK, recently, identified a second ‘more transmissible’ COVID-19 variant linked to South Africa which was spreading at a dangerous rate despite the tiering system put in place, UK health secretary Matt Hancock announced. The release by Pfizer says, “Though these two rapidly spreading viruses are different, they share the N501Y mutation, which is located in the receptor binding site of the spike protein and results in the virus’s spike protein binding more tightly to its receptor. It has been shown to infect mice more efficiently”.

All that you need to know

To find out if people who have received the vaccine could neutralise SARS-CoV-2 with the N501Y mutation, a virus with substitution was generated in UTMB’s laboratory. However, this virus did not include all the spike mutations found on the rapidly spreading strains. 

It was indicated that the key N501Y mutation does not create resistance to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine induced immune responses. The release said that further data is needed to monitor the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 caused by new virus variants. The release read, “If the virus mutates such that an update to the vaccine is required to continue to confer protection against COVID-19, we believe that the flexibility of BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA vaccine platform is well suited to enable an adjustment to the vaccine”. 

Read: Saudi Arabia's King Salman Gets First Dose Of Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

'Very significant problem' 

Recently, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that the mutant coronavirus from South Africa was “more of a problem” than the variant found in the UK. Both the countries reported the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 variant in December 2020. While the African variant named 501Y.V2 has been reported in countries including France and Japan, the British variant named B.1.1.7 has been reported in Australia, US and Canada amongst others. Meanwhile, speaking at a press meet, Hancock stressed that he was “incredibly worried” about the South African strain. Furthermore, he reasoned that it was because of this concern, that the UK had previously banned all incoming flights from South Africa. “This is a very, very significant problem ... and it’s even more of a problem than the UK new variant,” he said at the briefing.

Read: COVID-19: WHO Recommends Two Doses Of Pfizer And BioNTech Jabs Within 21-28 Days

Situation in South Africa 

The South African health minister has  revealed that elements related to the new coronavirus strain “strongly indicate” that the second wave in the nation is “carried” by the new variant as nearly 90% of the samples tested in the country contain the new strain. As per reports, unlike other mutations that eventually die away, the 501.V2 has key changed in the part of the pathogen that helps it to stick to host cells in humans. It is also the same part of the virus which is impacted by the vaccines and antibody therapies.

Read: Portuguese Nurse Dies Two Days After Taking Pfizer-BioNTech's Coronavirus Vaccine: Report

Also Read: In Key Global Move, WHO Accords Emergency Use Approval To Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID Vaccine

(Image Credits: AP)

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Published January 9th, 2021 at 17:41 IST

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