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As California coronavirus variant New studies that continue to spread beyond the Golden State suggest that some vaccines should continue to provide effective protection against them.
The· Investigation resultPublished Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the vaccination campaign is gaining momentum across the state, providing a good reason for Californians to keep their sleeves rolling.
“I don’t expect this mutant to be a problem for vaccines. That’s really good news,” said the research leader. David Montefiori, Duke University virologist.
The California variant is actually a pair of closely related fellow travelers known as B.1.427 and B.1.429. Scientists say they most likely appeared in the state in May and then surged to become the dominant stock in the deadly holiday surge.
They explained 56% of samples from California According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the gene sequence was determined between February 28 and March 13. They appear in all states and the District of Columbia, Spread to Australia, Singapore, Israel, Denmark.
California stocks are just one of several so-called stocks Variant of concern Tracked by the CDC.Other than that B.1.1.7, from the UK, Brazilian P.1 variant And that B.1.351 variant from South Africa.. They are threatening because they are more contagious, toxic, or resistant to vaccines than their predecessors.
Scientists and public health officials aim to quell these variants by immunizing the population as soon as possible. Not only will it hinder their spread, but it will also deprive them of the opportunity to acquire new mutations that could make them even more dangerous.
With the emergence of these coronavirus variants and their spread far beyond their place of origin, they have expressed concern about whether current vaccine crops effectively protect them. This is because the mutant has acquired a genetic mutation that is used by the virus to invade and invade human cells and affect the peplomer that the vaccine uses as a target.
The fear is that the immune system, trained to recognize previous versions of the virus, cannot recognize the mutants because mutations can significantly alter the peplomer, making it biological to vaccinated individuals. It is to remain unprotected.
So a team of researchers decided to test two vaccines.
They tested blood samples of people who received the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna, or the Novavax vaccine candidate, which has not yet been approved for use in the United States. We then introduced an manipulated version of the viral variant into these blood samples and waited to see what immune system response was elicited.
The predominant strain in the United States is called D614G and was neutralized by blood from people who received either vaccine.
The California variant they tested, B.1.429, was less susceptible to both the Moderna and Novavax vaccines, but researchers found that both shots provided effective protection. .. This is because the body produces much higher antibody levels than it actually needs to neutralize the virus, Montefiori said.
Also, although the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has not been studied in this paper, both use similar technology and are likely to perform as well as the Moderna vaccine, he said.
“People in Los Angeles are very pleased to get the current vaccines. They will be protected by those vaccines, just like people living in areas without California variants,” Montefiori said. Told.
“It’s always great to get such results,” he added.
However, both vaccines significantly reduced performance against South African variants.
The results of these labs weren’t ideal, but they weren’t surprising at all. In clinical trials, the Novavax vaccine was 89% effective in the UK, Only 49% effective in South Africa, B.1.351 dominates.
Similarly Johnson & Johnson Vaccine When tested in the United States, the risk of moderate to severe illness was reduced by 72%, and in South Africa it was only 57% effective.And the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford worked. Nothing beats a placebo When tested in a South African clinical trial.
The new treatise was one of several newspapers on viral variants and vaccines published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
A team of South African researchers testing the plasma of patients infected with South African variants report That the antibodies still provided a considerable level of protection against the “original” version of the coronavirus, and the Brazilian strain.
CONCLUSIONS: Researchers suggested that vaccines designed to target the B.1.351 version of the peplomer may be effective against a variety of mutants.
In another paper, Israeli scientists examined the antibody response of blood samples from six health workers who were infected and later vaccinated with a single dose of Pfizer vaccine. They found that after vaccination, the immune system recovered against the original virus and variants in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa, with antibody responses increased 114, 203, 81, and 228 times, respectively, just before firing. did.
“This highlights the importance of vaccination even in previously infected patients. It has the added benefit of increasing antibody response to the mutants tested,” the researchers write.
South African variants may arouse concerns about vaccine resistance, but so far it has done nothing more than establish a foothold in the United States, Montefiori said. According to the CDCAs of Tuesday, there were 386 confirmed cases related to B.1.351, but 16,275 cases related to British variants.
It’s important to remember that these types of tests do not measure the degree of full protection that a vaccine provides to a real person, he said. Dr. Monica GandhiHe was an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco and was not involved in new research.
For example, these tests look for antibodies, but not T cells, which make up another important arm of defense of the immune system.
“This is a laboratory study,” Gandhi said. “This doesn’t really tell us if these vaccines can induce T cells that are difficult to measure enough to destroy the South African virus.”
John Moore, A virologist at Weil Cornell Medical College, who was not involved in the new job, agreed.
While much can be inferred from the immune response found in blood samples, such studies “provide useful clues as to whether different mutants pose a problem for vaccines,” Moore said. Says. guide. “
This story was originally Los Angeles Times..
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