Vaccine Protection: S Africa variant could reduce it

A laboratory study has suggested that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies said on Wednesday.

The study found the vaccine was still able to neutralize the virus and there is not yet evidence from trials in people that the variant reduces vaccine protection, the companies said.

Still, they are making investments and talking to regulators about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine or a booster shot, if needed.

For the study, scientists from the companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) developed an engineered virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa, known as B.1.351. The spike, used by the virus to enter human cells, is the primary target of many Covid-19 vaccines.

Researchers tested the engineered virus against blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine, and found a two- thirds reduction in the level of neutralizing antibodies compared with its effect on the most common version of the virus prevalent in US trials.

Their findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world.

However, UTMB professor and study co-author Pei-Yong Shi said he believes the Pfizer vaccine will likely be protective against the variant.

"We don't know what the minimum neutralizing number is. We don't have that cutoff line," he said, adding that he suspects the immune response observed is likely to be significantly above where it needs to be to provide protection.

Meanwhile, India has decided to make Covid-19 molecular tests mandatory for people arriving directly or indirectly from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in a bid to contain the spread of more infectious virus variants found in those countries.

India, which has reported the highest number of overall Covid-19 cases after the United States, detected the South African variant in four people last month and the Brazilian one in one person this month.

The government has said the South African and Brazilian strains can more easily infect a person's lungs than the UK mutation. India has so far reported 187 cases of infection with the UK variant.

"All the travellers arriving from/transiting through flights originating in United Kingdom, Europe or the Middle East shall be mandatorily subjected to self-paid confirmatory molecular tests on arrival," India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement.

All flyers will also have to carry a recent Covid-negative report before boarding any flight to India, except in extraordinary circumstances like death in a family, reports Reuters.

VACCINE DATA SHARING

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday urged neighbouring countries to consider sharing data on the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines and explore special visas for medics to move around the region during health emergencies.

As the dominant power in and around South Asia, and with the capacity to be the world's top maker of Covid-19 shots, India has gifted or sold more than 17 million doses to countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Indian companies have promised to produce billions of Covid-19 shots this year alone.

Some analysts say India's high-profile vaccine diplomacy could help it win back strategic influence lost to richer rival China in many smaller countries in the region.

"Can we create a regional platform for collating, compiling and studying data about the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines among our populations?" Modi said in an address to regional health officials meeting virtually.

"Can we consider creating a special visa scheme for our doctors and nurses, so that they can travel quickly within our region during health emergencies, on the request of the receiving country?"

India, the world's biggest overall vaccine producer, has approved for emergency use Bharat Biotech's Covid-19 vaccine developed with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, and another licensed from AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, is producing the AstraZeneca product for low and middle-income countries and will soon start bulk-manufacturing the Novavax shot.

Several other vaccines are in the pipeline in India, which has supplied mainly SII-made shots to 25 countries with plans to add 49 more. It has also promised to gift 200,000 doses to UN peacekeepers around the world.