COVID strain in South Africa shows tremendous resistance to antibodies from the original virus

Durban, South Africa – The race to vaccinate people against COVID-19 has been made even more urgent by the emergency of new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus. CBS News was given rare access to a laboratory in South Africa that included one of the more disturbing new species of the virus, which appears to have at least some resistance to the antibodies that vaccines make in the human body to ward off the bug.

Virus hunters at the high-risk biohazard lab in Durban are following the trail of the mutant strain that is spreading rapidly across South Africa. The virus has mutated to attach itself to human cells more easily, so that the disease is no longer fatal, but it spreads much more easily.

“We do think we are going through a new pandemic with this variant that will not only transmit much faster, but may also be less neutralized,” genetic scientist Tulio de Oliveira told CBS News.

De Oliveira discovered the new variant after seeing a dramatic rise in infections in November. His colleagues in the high-security laboratory have developed a live culture of the species to speed up their research.

Alex Sigal is a senior researcher at the Africa Health Research Institute and the German Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. He says the new strain discovered in South Africa appears to have the potential to significantly reduce the effectiveness of antibodies in people infected with the original version of the virus.

“Tenfold would be conservative,” he tells CBS News, but “you can also get a complete knockout,” meaning that a person’s natural defenses against the original strain of the virus could prove useless against the virus. variant in South Africa.

That means those infected in the first wave could have little protection against the new strain, and more alarmingly, it could make some vaccines less effective.

“It is clear that we have underestimated this virus,” he says. “On the other hand, there is no evidence yet that vaccines will be affected, and people should definitely continue to vaccinate because that is the solution to this pandemic.”

In the country’s central lab, scientists are stressing that immunity is only part of the picture. Data on how effective the vaccines are against the new strain won’t be available in the coming weeks, but in the future, vaccines may need to be modified from time to time to protect against mutant strains – just like the annual flu shot has been. for years.