First modification:
A laboratory study conducted by the pharmaceutical alliance Pfizer and BioNTech, concluded that the drug developed to combat the coronavirus does protect against new highly transmissible variants of the disease.
After a year of health emergency and waiting for the vaccination campaigns to fulfill their function of immunizing populations so that the world can return to work at full speed, the appearance of variants of Covid-19 became a growing reason of concern for governments and health authorities.
A setback in the process of fighting the pandemic in 2021 would be a difficult blow for economies to assimilate, strongly overwhelmed by the restrictions and isolation that have sought to stop the spread. The big question that rises in the air is, do vaccines work against these mutations?
With more than eight laboratories in the race to distribute a useful drug that stops the respiratory virus, the response became a priority and one of the steps in that direction was taken by the Pfizer – Biontech alliance, through a study that, they say, shows that Its vaccine is effective, despite the variants of the virus, which quickly reach every corner of the country.
The research studied the recently discovered variants in England and South Africa. In blood samples from vaccine recipients, it was found that efficacy against the so-called N501Y mutation of the spike protein in the virus is maintained; this was recorded in the report published in bioRxiv before peer review.
Pfizer scientist Phil Dormitzer stated that the injections were tested and exposed in total to 16 different mutations without in any of the cases this representing a significant change for the treatment.
For Dormitzer “that is the good news”, although he was cautious when adding that the fact of having succeeded with 16 mutations does not ensure that future variants can also be mastered.
The rapid development of medical technology to stop the spread means, among other things, that regular testing will be required to maintain the assurance that vaccines will protect citizens over time.
In additional to a #vaccine, antivirals can play an important role in fighting viruses. Our investigational #antiviral for # COVID19 is currently in clinical trials and we are hopeful for its success.
– Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) January 8, 2021
The inoculation of this pharmaceutical is based on synthetic messenger RNA or mRNA technology. This is how the injection of Moderna Inc. also works.
For now the available information dictates that these developments protect against the new variants, although “the evidence is not conclusive” yet, according to Andreas Bergthaler of the Molecular Medicine Research Center of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna and CureVac NV are also testing their vaccines to confirm that they respond adequately to changes in the virus.
With Reuters
.
