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By Alexander Winning
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 8 (Reuters) - South African scientists are
testing whether vaccines will be less effective against a
COVID-19 variant first detected locally and hope for initial
results within two weeks, a professor at the national
communicable disease institute said.
The variant, known as 501Y.V2, was identified by South
African genomics experts late last year and is thought to be
more contagious than older variants.
Professor Penny Moore told Reuters the National Institute of
Communicable Diseases had received samples from several local
vaccine trials, including Oxford University and AstraZeneca's
shot, and would try to find out whether antibody
responses are reduced against 501Y.V2.
"The assays are now robustly set up and so we can start the
vaccine studies, which are really very time-sensitive so we hope
to have some preliminary results for at least two of the trials
within the next two weeks," she said on Friday.
Moore said the NICD would run tests on all the vaccines
being trial led in South Africa, including doses being developed
by Pfizer and BioNTech , Johnson & Johnson
and Novavax.
She said concerns expressed by British scientists and
politicians this week that vaccines may not be as effective
against the 501Y.V2 variant were not unfounded because of
worrying mutations in the spike protein the virus uses to infect
human cells.
"There is enough evidence to justify a concerted effort to
understand whether there will be reduced protection from
vaccines," Moore added.
The variant has driven a resurgence in infections in South
Africa, taking total cases to more than 1.17 million - the most
in Africa - and sending daily new cases to a peak of over 21,000
this week.
South Africa's health minister said on Thursday that
hospitals were struggling to manage the influx of patients, as
he laid out plans to vaccinate two-thirds of the population to
achieve herd immunity.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning
Editing by Joe Bavier, William Maclean)
