* United Kingdom is concerned about the S. African variant
* Mutations include extensive changes in peak protein
* Changes can lead to “flight of immune protection”
* Vaccine manufacturers are testing vaccines against new variants (reformulations with citations, details of scientists)
LONDON, January 4 (Reuters) – UK scientists expressed concern on Monday that the COVID-19 vaccines being launched in Britain may not be able to protect against a new variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in South Africa South and spread internationally.
Both Britain and South Africa have detected new, more communicable variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 in recent weeks, which has spurred an increase in the number of cases. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday that he is now very concerned about the variant identified in South Africa.
Simon Clarke, associate professor of cell microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while both variants have some new characteristics in common, the one found in South Africa “has several additional mutations … which are worrying”.
He said that this includes more extensive changes in a key part of the virus, known as protein spike – which the virus uses to infect human cells – and “may make the virus less susceptible to the immune response triggered by vaccines”.
Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at Warwick University, also noted that the South African variant has “multiple peak mutations”.
“The accumulation of more peak mutations in the South African variant is more worrying and could lead to some escape from immune protection,” he said.
Scientists like BioNTech’s CEO, Ugur Sahin, and John Bell, a professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, said they are testing vaccines against the new variants and say they can make the necessary adjustments in about six weeks.
Public Health England said there is currently no evidence to suggest that the COVID-19 vaccines do not protect against mutant virus variants. Britain’s health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The richest countries in the world have started to vaccinate their populations to protect themselves against a disease that has killed 1.8 million people and crushed the global economy.
There are currently 60 candidate vaccines in tests, including those already being launched by AstraZeneca and Oxford, Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Sputnik V from Russia and Sinopharm from China.
Scientists say the South African and British variants are associated with a higher viral load, which means a higher concentration of virus particles in the patients’ bodies, possibly contributing to increased transmission.
Bell, from Oxford, who advises the UK government’s vaccination task force, said on Sunday that he thought vaccines would work in the British variant, but said there was a “big question mark” about whether they would work in the southern variant. -African.
Sahin of BioNTech told Germany ‘Spiegel in an interview published on Friday that his vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to instruct the human immune system to fight the virus, must be able to protect against the UK variant.
“We are testing whether our vaccine can also neutralize this variant and we will soon know more,” he said. (Reporting by Kate Holton, Kate Kelland, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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