By Alexander Winning
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Research by South African scientists suggests that antibodies triggered by exposure to the country’s dominant coronavirus variant may prevent infection with other variants, the scientists said on Wednesday.
The findings in laboratory studies offer hope that the COVID-19 vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant first identified last year could protect against multiple variants circulating in different parts of the world.
The most contagious variant led to a second wave of infections in South Africa that peaked in January and are believed to have spread to many other countries in Africa and other continents.
“We use plasma … from people who were infected in this last wave with 501Y.V2 and used it against the first wave virus, … what we found is that it could neutralize, OK, not as well as it can be. neutralize, but it’s not bad, ”Alex Sigal of the Africa Health Research Institute said at a news conference.
Sigal said that vaccines designed with the 501Y.V2 variant in mind “may have cross-protection for other variants, … this gives an idea of how this variant problem can be solved”.
Penny Moore, a professor at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, said that the antibody response of the 501Y.V2 variant was reduced only three times against the first wave virus, while the response of the first wave virus was reduced nine times against the 501Y. V2.
“It’s not that the antibodies that are triggered by 501Y.V2 are in any way magical, there is a drop, … but unlike the antibodies that are triggered by the original variant, they seem to be a little more wide,” she said. briefing.
Salim Abdool Karim, government adviser to COVID-19, said that major vaccine manufacturers, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, were already making vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant. Moderna has already adapted its shot and is applying it to human studies, he added.
He predicted that by the end of 2021 most vaccine manufacturers would have adapted their vaccines, “not because they are specifically concerned with the virus coming from South Africa … but because important mutations in 501Y.V2 are also present in many others variants “.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said the research was encouraging and that genomic surveillance helped the government respond to the pandemic.
South Africa has recorded, by far, the highest number of COVID-19 infections and deaths on the African continent, with 1.5 million cases and more than 50,000 deaths to date.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)