The dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University / AstraZeneca is displayed in its box at Princess Royal Hospital at Haywards Heath, West Sussex, Great Britain, January 2, 2021.
Gareth Fuller | Reuters
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is racing to adapt its Covid-19 vaccine in the face of new variants of the virus, with the process becoming more urgent after a small-scale study found it was less effective in protecting against the most virulent strain discovered in South Africa. South.
The country said it would suspend use of the vaccine in its vaccination program after a study, published on Sunday and not yet peer-reviewed, found that the vaccine offers “minimal protection” against mild to moderate illnesses caused by the South African variant.
Researchers at the University of Witwatersrand and others in South Africa, and at the University of Oxford, noted that the study was small, involving only about 2,000 volunteers with an average age of 31 years. The University of Oxford said “protection against moderate to severe illness, hospitalization or death could not be assessed in this study, as the target population was at low risk.”
Vaccine manufacturers have already started developing second-generation Covid vaccines to target new variants of the virus, and experts say it shouldn’t be too complicated to adjust existing vaccines to cover mutations and can be adapted in a matter of six weeks. .
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, who developed the vaccine with AstraZeneca, commented on Sunday that “efforts are underway to develop a new generation of vaccines that will allow protection to be redirected to emerging variants like booster jabs, if it happens It is necessary to do this. “
“We are working with AstraZeneca to optimize the pipeline necessary for a strain change, if necessary. This is the same problem faced by all vaccine developers, and we will continue to monitor the emergence of new variants that arise in readiness for a future change. of strain. “
The variant, formally known as the B.1.351 mutation, was first detected in South Africa in October 2020 and has since become dominant in the country.
Several cases have been found elsewhere as well, causing health officials to struggle to prevent the spread of the mutation, which has proven to be more infectious. There was already concern that this variant might be more resistant to coronavirus vaccines developed last year.
As it suspended the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University jab, the South African government will offer vaccines produced by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
In late January, Johnson & Johnson reported that their single dose injection was 57% effective in one of their clinical trials in South Africa, where almost all cases of Covid-19 (95%) were due to infection with variant of B. Lineage 1.351. For comparison, the vaccine was considered 72% effective in the North American study arm.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reported the first indications that their vaccinations offer protection against new known variants of the virus, those found in South Africa and the United Kingdom
On Friday, the University of Oxford released details of a separate study that showed that its vaccine was effective against a variant of the virus that was first discovered in southeastern England and has now become the dominant strain in the UK
Andrew Pollard, professor of pediatric infection and immunity, and lead investigator for the Oxford vaccine trial, said that data from the UK vaccine trial “indicates that the vaccine not only protects against the original pandemic virus, but also against the new variant , B.1.1.7, which caused the disease to increase from the end of 2020 across the UK. “