Additional booster vaccines against the coronavirus will be needed in the future, said a leading British scientist studying the virus. A booster is an extra injection that enhances or renews the effect of a previous vaccine. Boosters are needed because the coronavirus keeps changing or mutating.
Sharon Peacock is the Head of COVID-19 Genomics UK, COG-UK. She said countries must work together in their fight against the virus.
“We would always need a booster doses immunity against coronavirus will not last forever, ”Peacock told Reuters.
She added that scientists were already changing the vaccine to fight the virus variants as they are found.
Peacock, a professor at Cambridge University in the UK, said she was sure regularly booster shots would be needed to handle future variations. However, she said the booster doses can be developed over time and given to people.
Peacock founded COG-UK exactly a year ago with the help of the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance. The group is made up of public health experts and scientists from various British universities. It now contains more information about the genetics of the virus than anywhere else in the world. Scientists from COG-UK have done this in places in Great Britain sequenced more than 349,000 genomes of the virus from a global effort of about 778,000 genomes.
There are three main variants of the coronavirus, which were first identified: Great Britain, known as B.1.1.7; Brazil, known as P1; and South Africa, known as B.1.351.
Peacock said she’s most concerned about the South African variety. Not only does it spread more easily, but it also has a change in a gene mutation that can decrease immunityThat gene mutation is known as E484K.
With 120 million cases of COVID-19 around the world, it becomes difficult to keep track of all the different variants and names. So Peacock’s teams think in terms of “constellations of mutations,” she said. “Constellation” in this case means a group of people or things that are somehow similar.
She explained that scientists are thinking “about which mutations or constellation of mutations will be biologically important and different combinations that may have slightly different biological effects.”
Peacock added that she and other experts have had to accept that they are wrong about some of their COVID-19 predictions.
“One of the things the virus has taught me is that I can be wrong on a regular basis – I have to be decent humiliate in light of the virus that we know very little about, ”she said.
“There may be a variant that we have not even discovered yet.”
The coronavirus has killed 2.65 million people worldwide since it began in China in late 2019.
There will be other pandemics in the future. Peacock hopes scientists will take what they’ve learned from the coronavirus and be better prepared for the next global health crisis.
I am Susan Shand.
The Reuters news agency reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it to teach English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
Words in this story
mutate – v. To causing (a gene) to change and create an unusual trait in a plant or animal
ruler – adj. happens over and over at the same time or in the same way
immunity – n. the power to avoid getting sick
dose – n. the amount of medication to be taken at one time
variant – n. in some way different from others of the same kind
order – v. a group of things that come one after another
humiliate – adj. don’t think of yourself as better than others
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