health care workers are administering Pfizer vaccine
Scientists have found some troubling signs about variant coronaviruses (CCMVs). The results of a study released this week show that certain recent mutants inhibit existing vaccines, although researchers emphasize that vaccination still works as a preventative measure.
On Wednesday (Jan. 20), researchers at Rockefeller University in New York, the National Institutes of Health and multiple other regions, after testing vaccines against variants of the CCHS virus from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, tentatively announced that they had found indications that mutations in the virus could undermine the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The vaccine works by prompting the immune system to produce antibodies that can stop the virus from infecting cells. Rockefeller University researchers took blood samples from 20 people who had received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and tested their antibody levels against various viral mutations in the lab.
Dr. Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University, who led the study, said that for some virus variants, the vaccine produced antibodies that were less effective – one to three times less active, depending on the form of the mutation, according to the Associated Press.
The difference is small, but it’s definitely a difference,” he said, adding that the new experiments showed that some antibody responses to the vaccine were “not so good” at blocking the virus.
The team also said that another, more limited study showed that the vaccine was resistant to some mutations.
The latest findings were posted on the researchers’ Web site late Tuesday (Jan. 19) and have not been published in a journal or reviewed by other scientists.
E. John Wherry, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said the new investigation comes from a team of the world’s leading scientists, and their conclusions are worrisome.
“We don’t want people to think that current vaccines are obsolete. Absolutely not,” Wherry said, “they still provide immunity and have good levels of protection,” but mutations in the virus “do reduce the ability of our immune response system to recognize the virus.”
Buddy Creech, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University, says he feels “we have an arms race between vaccines and viruses” and that “the slower we roll out vaccines around the world, the greater the opportunity for viruses to escape and mutate. “
The mutational diversity of the CCP virus has grown, with new kinds of strains emerging in Germany, in addition to variants in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. New variants of the virus appear to be more easily transmitted between people.
Recent Comments