Rahma Ahmed
By Ahmed Rahma
The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine developed by German firm, BioNTech, in partnership with Pfizer has been found to neutralise the South African variant of coronavirus, but with considerably fewer antibodies.
According to an in-vitro study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the neutralisation rate for the more infectious strain was weaker by approximately two thirds.
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch said it was unclear what effect that would have on the efficacy of the vaccine, since other factors were also key to the body’s immune response, such as the production of so-called T-cells.
“There is no clinical evidence to date that the South African variant virus escapes vaccine-elicited protection from COVID-19 in vaccinated people,” Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement on Thursday.
However, the companies added that they were “taking the necessary steps, making the right investments, and engaging in the appropriate conversations with regulators” to adapt their mRNA vaccine if a strain emerged that made it significantly less effective.
Recall that recently, the South African government suspended the use of AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on its citizens over an issue concerning the protection of users.
About a million doses of the vaccine from the United Kingdom had already been delivered to the former apartheid country by the manufacturer.
However, South Africa claimed test results showed that the vaccine did not protect clinical-trial participants from mild or moderate illness caused by the more contagious COVID-19 virus variant ( B.1.351) that was first seen there.
It was not clear from the studies whether the vaccine protected against severe disease from the B.1.351 variant.
The clinical trial participants, who were evaluated, were relatively young and unlikely to become severely ill, making it impossible for the scientists to determine if the variant interfered with the vaccine’s ability to protect against severe COVID-19, hospitalisations or deaths.
