New coronavirus variants around the world could interrupt progress in the fight against the pandemic.
A number of new species have been found in recent weeks, including in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.
Scientists warn that these new variants could easily re-infect people who survived COVID-19, as there may be resistance to antibodies, which evade the immune system response generated by the initial infection.
In addition, they warn that the variants could force researchers to update vaccines so often that it turns into a flu with an injection every season.
New strains of coronavirus can potentially bypass the immune response that COVID-19 survivors have developed and allow for easier reinfection. Pictured: ICU Medical Director, Dr. Thomas Yadegar, monitors the vital signs of Dr. Neil Hecht and his wife Mindy Cross (center) at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, January 3
Vaccines may also need to be updated to target mutations seen on the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter and infect cells. Pictured: A man receives a dose of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination site in the Bronx, New York, Jan. 10
Dr. Nuno Faria, a virologist at Imperial College London and associate professor at the University of Oxford, told Science Magazine that Manaus, Brazil, is a perfect case study of how variants can reverse progress.
In December 2020, he co-authored a paper that estimated 75 percent of the city population was infected with the virus, enough for herd immunity.
However, around the same time, the cases of COVID-19 started to increase again and hospital beds were filled.
“It was difficult to reconcile these two things,” Faria told the magazine.
By looking at samples, he discovered that a new variety had developed that had spread across the city.
Of the 31 samples collected in mid-December, 13 had the new lineage called P.1, and it appeared to bypass the immune response triggered by a virus that infected humans earlier this year.
P.1 is of course not the only variant. Several have emerged around the world, perhaps no more remarkable than B 1.1.7., First identified in the UK.
B 1.1.7., Believed to be up to 70 percent more communicable than other variants, has infected nearly 100 people in 18 US states.
And last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report saying it could become the most common strain in the country by March.
Another variant, called 501Y.V2, was first discovered in South Africa and has spread to several other countries, but not the US.
B 1.1.7., Believed to be up to 70 percent more transmissible than other variants, has infected nearly 100 people in 18 US states, along with some homegrown variants
A pre-print study found that the South African variant has mutations in the spike protein, which the virus uses to infect human cells, reducing the potency in restorative plasma by a factor of ten.
Plasma is the liquid part of the blood that is transferred to COVID-19 patients in the hope that they will develop antibodies necessary to fight the virus.
The study’s author, Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, noted in Science Magazine that this necessarily means that people’s natural immunity decreases tenfold when they become infected with a new mutation.
He adds that the Brazilian variant, P.1, is of concern because those mutations are similar and it causes cases to increase in areas believed to have high immunity threshold.
“ Anytime you see the same mutations emerge and start spreading multiple times, in different viral strains around the world, that’s really strong evidence that there is an evolutionary benefit to those mutations, ” Bloom told Science Magazine. .
“I would expect those viruses to have some benefit if a lot of the population has immunity.”
There is currently no evidence that either variant is resistant to either Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
However, the fact that new mutations keep popping up is alarming
‘The less good news is that the rapid evolution of these variants suggests that if it is possible for the virus to evolve into a vaccine-resistant phenotype, it could happen sooner than we want,’ Philip Krause, chair of a WHO working group on COVID-19- vaccines, Science magazine said.
There is a sense of urgency to vaccinate people as soon as possible to address at least the most common species at the moment.
If necessary, vaccines can be easily reformulated to respond to various mutations of the spike protein.
This does mean, however, that they will likely need to go through the Food and Drug Administration more before they are authorized
“To be clear, these are downstream considerations,” Krause told Science Magazine.
“The public shouldn’t think this is imminent and that new vaccines will be needed.”