Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine works just as well against variant first detected in U.K., study indicates

Study: Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine effective with variant first detected in U.K. The paper is a welcome signal that existing vaccines don’t seem to be weakened by the variant in question, known as B.1.1.7. Andrew Joseph STAT

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech appears to work just as well against a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus first identified in the United Kingdom as it does against earlier forms of the pathogen, the companies reported in a study Wednesday.

The paper from company scientists, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, is a welcome signal that existing vaccines don’t seem to be weakened by the variant in question, dubbed B.1.1.7. Already, scientists had tested the Pfizer vaccine against one of the key mutations in the variant and found the immunization’s neutralization power was not affected.

Scientists are also testing vaccines against other variants of concern, which contain different mutations that in lab experiments have shown they can, to some extent, help the virus evade existing antibodies that recognize and target the virus. These mutations appear in variants first seen in South Africa and Brazil, which also look to be more transmissible than earlier iterations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The variants in South Africa and Brazil have raised concerns that they can more easily reinfect people who have already recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies against the virus, though more studies — including whether there’s some impact on how well vaccines work — are ongoing.

In the new study, researchers engineered what are called pseudoviruses (these are more practical to work with in lab experiments than actual live specimens of dangerous viruses like SARS-2) to have the full suite of mutations as B.1.1.7. They then tested blood taken from 16 people who had received the vaccine against the variant, and found it could neutralize the variant as well as it could an earlier form of the virus. “These data … make it unlikely that the B.1.1.7 lineage will escape” protection from the vaccine, the researchers wrote. ...