The dose of the Oxford University / AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will be shown from the box at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, UK on January 2, 2021.
Gareth Fuller | Reuters
Drug company AstraZeneca is rushing to modify its Covid-19 vaccine in the face of new variants of the virus, with the process becoming more urgent after a small study found it to be less effective at protecting against the more virulent strain found in South Africa was discovered. .
The country said it would suspend use of the injection in its vaccination program after a study, published Sunday and not yet peer-reviewed, found the vaccine provided “minimal protection” against mild to moderate disease caused by the South. -African variant.
Researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and others in South Africa, and the University of Oxford, noted that the study was small, with only about 2,000 volunteers with an average age of 31 years. Oxford University said, “protection against moderate illness, hospitalization or death could not be assessed in this study because the target population was at such a low risk.”
Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to develop second-generation Covid vaccines targeting new variants of the virus, and experts say it shouldn’t be too difficult to adapt existing vaccines to mutations, and that it should be within six weeks can be adjusted.
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccine at the University of Oxford, who co-developed the vaccine with AstraZeneca, noted on Sunday that “ efforts are underway to develop a new generation of vaccines that can redirect protection to emerging variants such as booster stimuli, as it turns out that it is necessary to do this. “
“We are working with AstraZeneca to optimize the pipeline required for a strain change, should the need arise. This is the same problem faced by all vaccine developers, and we will see the emergence of new variants emerging in readiness,” keep following for a future line change. “
The variant, formally known as the B.1.351 mutation, was first discovered in South Africa in October 2020 and has since become dominant in the country.
Several cases have also been found elsewhere, prompting health authorities to rush to stop the spread of the mutation, which has been proven to be more contagious. There have already been concerns that this variant could be more resistant to coronavirus vaccines developed in the past year.
Since it has suspended use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot, the South African government will instead offer vaccines manufactured by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
In late January, Johnson & Johnson reported that the single-dose injection was 57% effective in one of the clinical trials in South Africa, where nearly all cases of Covid-19 (95%) were due to infection with the variant of the B. 1.351 pedigree. In comparison, the vaccine was found to be 72% effective in the US arm of the trial.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have both reported early evidence that their vaccinations offer protection against new known variants of the virus found in South Africa and the UK.
On Friday, Oxford University released details of a separate study showing that the vaccine was effective against a variant of the virus first discovered in South East England and has now become the dominant strain in the UK.
Andrew Pollard, professor of pediatric infection and immunity, and principal investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial, said data from the trials with his vaccine in the UK “ indicates that the vaccine protects not only against the original pandemic virus, but also against the new variant B 1.1.7, which caused the rise in diseases in the UK from the end of 2020. “