Pfizer says its vaccine works against Covid variants

WASHINGTON/LONDON: Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine appears able to protect against a key mutation in the highly transmissible new variants of the coronavirus discovered in Britain and South Africa, according to a laboratory study conducted by the US drugmaker.

The study by Pfizer and scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, indicated the vaccine was effective in neutralising variants with the so-called N501Y mutation, situated on a portion of the virus that it uses to enter and infect cells. All of the vaccines already approved or in development use this outer portion of the virus, known as the spike protein, to train the body to recognise the virus and make virus-neutralising antibodies.

The N501Y mutation is linked to greater transmissibility, and scientists have expressed concerns it could also allow the virus to escape the neutralising antibodies produced in response to the vaccine, said Phil Dormitzer, one of Pfizer’s top viral vaccine scientists.

Although all viruses mutate constantly, scientists are concerned about the mutations first discovered in Britain and South Africa because they are believed to be capable of altering key functions of the virus.

The Pfizer study was conducted on blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine. Its findings are limited because it does not look at the full set of mutations found in either of the new variants of the rapidly spreading virus.

UK nod for Moderna shot

Britain’s medical regulator on Friday Moderna’s vaccine, making it the third Covid-19 vaccine approved for use in the country after the Pfizer/BioNTech and University of Oxford/AstraZeneca

vaccines, which have been administered to 1.5 million people so far.

Moderna’s vaccine supplies will begin to be delivered to the UK from spring.

“We have already vaccinated nearly 1.5 million people across the UK and Moderna’s vaccine will allow us to accelerate our vaccination programme even further ,” health minister Matt Hancock said.

While the UK facing continuing surge of new Covid-19 cases, London mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday declared a “major incident”. A “major incident” is defined as an event or situation with a range of serious consequences that requires special arrangements to be implemented by one or more emergency responder agency. The ambulance service is now taking nearly 8,000 emergency calls a day now.

It comes as the number of Covid-19 cases in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000, putting immense pressure on an already stretched National Health Service.

In the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, a record 4,085 Americans died in the last 24 hours with 275,000 new infections.

With inputs from Prasun Sonwalkar