COVID-19: Pfizer, Moderna testing vaccine efficacy against new virus strain in UK

After having shipped 2.9 million dosages of the COVID-19 vaccines across the US recently, the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer announced on December 21 that it is now testing its vaccines for the new variant of the coronavirus that mutated and spread across parts of England, and South Africa. Similarly, Moderna which received the US FDA authorisation for emergency use of its mRNA vaccine said in a statement that it was performing tests on the vaccines to see if it induced immunity for the more contagious strain described by the UK. According to CNN, the two companies were now dedicated to extensive research and generating data about how well their vaccine doses neutralized the coronavirus’ genomic variant in the blood samples of the participants. 

“Based on the data to date, we expect that the Moderna vaccine-induced immunity would be protective against the variants recently described in the UK,” ANI reported, citing Moderna’s official statement to CNN. “We will be performing additional tests in the coming weeks to confirm this expectation,” it further read. Earlier, British scientists, in a detailed report, informed UK PM Boris Johnson’s administration about the new mutated virus genome suspected to belong to B.1.1.7 lineage, which is 70 percent more contagious that had spread at an extremely faster rate across Kent, southeastern England with doubling time of 7 days in some parts. 

Read: New Strain Of COVID From UK Has Increased Transmissibility, Not Severity: Health Ministry

Read: US Congresswoman AOC Gets COVID-19 Vaccine On Instagram Live, Documents Entire Process

BioNtech CEO has ‘scientific confidence’ 

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech’s CEO Ugur Sahin told a news conference that it is “highly likely that the immune response by Pfizer vaccine also can deal with the new virus variants.” His comments were made just a day after the European Union approved the Pfizer vaccines for emergency use. Sahin said, that while there was no scientific evidence at the moment and the research was being carried out into obtaining more information about the mutated genome of the coronavirus, BioNtech had ‘scientific confidence’ that the protein on the UK variant was 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2 variant. "But we will know it only if the experiment is done and we will need about two weeks from now to get the data," the BioNtech CEO was quoted by PTI as saying. "The likelihood that our vaccine works is relatively high,” he announced. 

Read: WHO: New Coronavirus Variant Not 'out Of Control' But Can't Be Left 'to Its Own Devices'

Read: UK Virus Strain: London Returnee's Sample To Go To NIV For Genomic Analysis