Study: Vaccine effective with newstrains
UTMB researchers believe mutation ‘does not compromise’ neutralizing of antibodies
GALVESTON — Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is effective against two highly transmissible strains of the virus, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Themutated COVID-19 strains— colloquially known as the United Kingdom and South Africa variants — were tested in 20 previously vaccinated participants of the Phase 3 clinical trial by medical branch researchers. The testing was done as part of an ongoing partnership with Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies that developed the first vaccine for the virus.
UTMB researchers conducted testing on the Pfizer vaccine before itwas officially authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December.
The antibodies from the vaccinated blood sera from all 20 participantswere effective against the mutated COVID-19 variants.
“By (testing) all those 20 specimens fromthe vaccinated individuals, the results turned out to be that this mutation does not compromise the neutralizing activity” of their antibodies, said Pei-Yong Shi, a virologist and professor of human genetics at UTMB-Galveston.
The early data — the results were released early Friday and have not yet been peer reviewed — on Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against the UK/South Africa variants is promising news for the Houston area, which on Thursday recorded its ninth straight day of COVID-19 patients exceeding 15 percent of hospitalizations, triggering a tightening of business restrictions.
Around the state, there were a record 13,784 patients hospitalized with the disease Thursday. More than 29,000 Texans have died from the disease, including nearly 5,000 in the Houston area.
On Thursday, Harris County Public Health identified the first
instance of the new COVID-19 strain in a man age 30 to 40 living in the southwest part of the county.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference the variant “has the potential to throw jet fuel on an already dangerous situation.”
The new variants of the virus are thought to be up to 70 percent more transmissible than other strains of the virus.
Shi’s research on the new virus strainswasmade possible by a systemhe created at the outset of the pandemic to manipulate and reverse-engineer the virus genome. The system allowed medical branch scientists to easily alter the virus by focusing on the crucial N501Ymutation in the virus’ spike protein that is common in both of the highly transmissible variants.
While the results on the vaccine are promising, Shi acknowledged researchers are just beginning to understand the many variants of COVID-19. But he believes the authorized vaccines — Moderna’s vaccine uses the same technology as Pfizer’s, which was also approved by the FDA in December — are both effective enough to guard against mutated virus strains, and nimble enough to be altered if they don’t.
“Particularly, the (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccines, they should be able to rapidly adapt to the new sequences for the vaccine,” Shi said. “But that, of course, is a long shot andwe hopewe don’t need to do that.”
He added that UTMB is currently studying other COVID-19 mutations, and hoped that results would be released in the coming weeks. UTMB is also looking at how these mutations affect the FDA-approved monoclonal antibody therapy that has been effective for high-risk patients.
“We will have more studies coming out to look at the other mutations, andmore importantly, a combination of all those mutations— what theydoandhowthey do it.”