WOrld News

Pfizer vaccine likely works against Covid-19 mutations

The University of Texas’ tests are promising for strains in South Africa and the United Kingdom

Reporter Victoria Nuzzi

Researchers from Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston performed tests on mutated Covid-19 virus and the Pfizer vaccine to see how effective the vaccine was against mutations.

The researchers created a version of Covid-19 that had a mutation called N501Y, which has been found in the strain 502.V2 in South Africa and the strain B.1.1.7 in the United Kingdom.

“This mutation is a ‘particular concern’ because it is located on the binding site of the spike protein and is known to increase the ability of the virus to bind to human cells,” the authors wrote in the study that was published on January 7th on the preprint database bioRxiv. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The researchers then looked at how the mutated strain’s reaction compared to those of previous strains of Covid-19 that did not have the mutation.

They tested whether both strains were neutralized in the bloodstream of samples taken from 20 people who had already been vaccinated by the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine.

The researcher described “no reduction in neutralization activity against the virus bearing the new mutation.”

There was a limitation to their study, though: the variant they tested did not have all the mutations that are found on spike protein in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Phil Dormitizer, Pfizer’s vice president and the chief scientific officer, said that the Pfizer company will be conducting more studies on other mutations.

The researchers also wrote, “Because the SARS-CoV-2 virus, like other viruses, will continue to evolve, it’s important to continuously monitor them for mutations that could affect the vaccine’s effectiveness and to be prepared for the possibility of a future mutation that would necessitate changes to the vaccines. Such a vaccine update would be facilitated by the flexibility of mRNA-based vaccine technology”

Similar tests are being conducted by Moderna and AstraZeneca.

Dormitzer told STAT, an American health-oriented news website, “ These data don’t suggest a need for a change, but the mutations are hitting close enough to home that we need to be prepared.”

If the need does come that the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines would change because they are both mRNA-based vaccines. The researchers would simply swap out the genetic code they used to code the spike protein in previous vaccines and put in a new version that includes the new mutation.