Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine Effective Against Highly Infectious Coronavirus Variant Discovered In UK, Finds Study

The Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech protects against the more infectious mutation of the virus that was recently discovered in the United Kingdom (UK), reports Economic Times.

These results were revealed following an extensive analysis of blood of participants in trials conducted by the US drugmaker.

Pfizer had earlier disclosed that the vaccine proved out to be effective against a key variant that was highly transmissible and spreading in Britain and South Africa.

The most recent study was carried out on a synthetic virus that has 10 mutations, having the characteristic of the B117 variant found in Britain.

Process of the research

Blood samples of 16 vaccinated participants from previous clinical trials were exposed to a synthetic virus, pseudovirus, for this test. Psuedovirus was particularly engineered to have the same surface proteins as B117, which is characterized by 10 hallmark mutations.

The antibodies in the blood of the volunteers given the vaccine, known as Comirnaty, or BNT162b2, neutralised the pseudovirus as effectively as the older coronavirus version that the product was initially designed for.

However, this research hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet to further solidify its claims. BioNTech co-founders Ugur Sahin and Oezlum Tuereci are amongst the 11 researchers involved in the study.

According to the report, this new study has instilled some hopes of the vaccine development not having to start from scratch all over again to tackle this new mutant.