Pfizer Vaccine Effective Against UK COVID-19 Variant—Study

By Ahmed Rahma

A new study has shown that the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the highly infectious variant of the virus detected in the United Kingdom.

A study by the United States’ drugmaker confirmed this on Wednesday. It said the results of the study were based on an analysis of the blood of participants in trials which contains more extensive analysis than those released by Pfizer last week.

Last week, Pfizer said a similar laboratory study showed the vaccine was effective against one key mutation called N501Y found in both of the highly transmissible new variants spreading in Britain and South Africa.

The latest study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was conducted on 10 mutations, which are characteristic of the variant known as B117 identified in Britain.

Among the 11 authors of the study were the chief executive, Ugur Sahin and chief medical officer, Oezlem Tuereci, co-founders of BioNTech and husband-and-wife team.

The encouraging news comes amid warnings today that the UK could still be in lockdown at Easter, despite the vaccine rollout.

The UK’s elderly and vulnerable are being prioritised for the jabs from Pfizer and the Oxford AstraZeneca team.

The government said under-70s could begin receiving the vaccine this week, as the number of doses administered hit 4 million.

More mass vaccination super-hub sites were opened this week as health authorities ramp up efforts to meet the government’s target to vaccinate 15 million in the UK by mid-February.

But the vaccination drive is in a race against time as the UK is rocked by record daily deaths, and the NHS in recent days disclosed that the infection rates have begun to tail off in some COVID hot-spots, including London.

However, some key government figures have warned against complacency.

Speaking on lockdown if infection figures drop, the chief science adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance said, “The advice at the moment is vaccines are not going to do the heavy lifting for us at the moment, anywhere near it.

“This is about, I’m afraid, the restrictive measures which we’re all living under and carrying on with those.

“The numbers are nowhere near where they need to be at the moment, they need to come down quite a lot further – we need to make sure we stick with it.

“You go for a walk in the park or something, life looks normal; you go for a walk in a hospital, if you work in a hospital, you will see life not looking normal at all.

“This is a really difficult, dangerous situation we’re in, and we need to get the numbers down, so I don’t see a release of these measures as being a sensible thing to do in the short term.”