The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine successfully neutralized the more contagious mutation of the coronavirus originally found in Brazil, says a recent study.
According to Axios, researchers found that the vaccine was able to provide effective immunization not only against the Brazilian variant, but also the lineage detected in the United Kingdom. They published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Experts predict that the variants that are currently circulating in the U.S. could cause a fourth surge of COVID-19, which could cause the number of cases to escalate and prolong the pandemic.
In the recent study, the researchers gave fully vaccinated participants an engineered version of the Brazilian strain of the virus. They found that the virus was neutralized as effectively as the original, less contagious coronavirus.
In previous studies, scientists found that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appeared to be highly effective against the variant version of the virus first detected in the U.K., according to The Washington Post. However, the vaccines showed a decreased ability to neutralize the strain that is now dominant in South Africa.
This worrisome piece of news prompted Pfizer and other vaccine manufacturers to develop booster or updated shots to address the variants, according to Axios.
Experts warn that the emergence of new variants can change the trajectory of the disease. “There’s so much up in the air, and the new variants have thrown a huge monkey wrench into our ability to model things,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a microbiologist and director of the University of Alabama School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, according to NBC News.
According to The New York Times, Dr. Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a faculty member in the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, said that the emerging variants are definitely cause for concern.
“The overall message of it is solid and consistent with what we’ve been seeing from other sources of information,” he said, adding that the increased transmission of new variants will impact the U.S. for the next few months.
Another reason experts are worried about the new mutations popping up across the country is that people who have already had COVID-19 could become reinfected.
“We know that you can become reinfected even with the same version of the virus,” said Ravindra Gupta of the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease. “The mutations could put even more of a dent in the barrier of resistance.”
Former official at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Ali Mokdad, Ph.D., a professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington who helped develop one of the most popular models predicting the spread of the coronavirus, said Americans must remain vigilant.
“We have to do what we know is effective — social distancing and wearing a mask,” he said, according to NBC News. “We can’t celebrate prematurely because if everyone assumes the worst is behind us, that’s when we’ll see peaks again.”
Lynn C. Allison ✉
Lynn C. Allison, a Newsmax health reporter, is an award-winning medical journalist and author of more than 30 self-help books.
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