Study suggests vaccine works against variant
New research suggests that Pfizer’s Covid19 vaccine can protect against a mutation found in two highly contagious variants of the coronavirus that erupted in Britain and South Africa.
Those variants are causing global concern. They both share a common mutation called N501Y, a slight alteration on one spot of the spike protein that coats the virus. That change is believed to be the reason they can spread so easily.
Most of the vaccines being rolled out around the world train the body to recognise that spike protein and fight it. Pfizer teamed with researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for laboratory tests to see if the mutation affected its vaccine’s ability to do so.
They used blood samples from 20 people who received the vaccine, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, during a large study of the shots. Antibodies from those vaccine recipients successfully fended off the virus in lab dishes, according to the study posted late yesterday on an online site for researchers.
The study is preliminary and has not yet been reviewed by experts, a key step for medical research.
But ‘‘it was a very reassuring finding that at least thismutation, which was one of the ones people are most concerned about, does not seem to be a problem’’ for the vaccine, said Pfizer chief scientific officer Dr Philip Dormitzer.
Meanwhile, health chiefs believe that hundreds of lives could be saved in the coming weeks after an arthritis drug was found to cut the risk of death of the sickest Covid-19 patients by 24 per cent.
The drug, tocilizumab, was also found to reduce the time that critically ill patients spent in intensive care by up to 10 days.
The UK government said that the breakthrough could ‘‘contribute significantly towards reducing pressures on hospitals over the coming weeks and months’’ as the NHS faces a surge in Covid-19 cases, fuelled by a new variant of the virus.
Updated guidance will be issued to NHS trusts, encouraging them to use tocilizumab in their treatment of Covid-19 patients who are admitted to intensive care units, effective immediately. The medicine costs up to £1000 per patient, with the dose depending on body weight. For every 12 patients who receive it a life will be saved, trial data indicates.
Anthony Gordon, of Imperial College London, who led the study, said: ‘‘That is a big effect and that’s why we think these results are really important and really exciting and want to share them as quickly as possible – that is a small number of patients to treat to save a life.’’
The findings are from the Remap-Cap study, which is led by Imperial and the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) in the UK and University Medical Centre Utrecht in Europe. The researchers looked at tocilizumab and a very similar drug called sarilumab. –