Pfizer Vaccine Effective Against British Covid AND South African Strain

Pfizer Vaccine Effective Against British Covid AND South African Strain.

PFIZER and BioNTech have announced in a joint statement today (January 28) that their vaccine is effective against British and South African variants of the virus.

According to preliminary studies published on Wednesday (January 20), the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was only said to be effective against the British Covid strain but not the South African.

The studies carried out by an international team of researchers from British and Dutch universities about the British and South African variants of Covid-19 showed that while the former would not alter the effectiveness of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine, the latter probably carries a higher risk of reinfection.

However, the statement today says that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains effective against both the British and South African variants of Covid-19, with both companies stating that ‘in vitro’ tests “have not demonstrated the need for a new vaccine to deal with emerging variants,” noting that “they continue to monitor emerging variants and are ready to respond” if any of these mutations were vaccine-resistant.

The data is based on a study by researchers at the University of Texas and a Pfizer researcher, “backed” by the two companies. The authors compared the antibodies of 20 people vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine during clinical trials, with three laboratory-recreated SARS-CoV-2 mutations representing the major mutations of the British and South African variants of the virus.

These mutations are located at the level of the peak protein of the coronavirus, the tip that is on its surface and allows it to adhere to human cells to penetrate them, thus playing a key role in viral infection.

“Plasma from people vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine neutralised all tested SARS-CoV-2 virus variants,” the companies note, even if neutralisation of the virus by antibodies was “slightly less” for all three mutations of the South African variant than for the three mutations of the English variant tested.

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