COVID research updates: Viral #variant is less susceptible to a COVID vaccine’s effects
►https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w
The team pitted the B.1.351-like virus against blood serum from people who had received two doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech in Mainz, Germany. Antibodies elicited by the vaccine neutralized the virus only one-third as effectively as they did a strain lacking those mutations.
The researchers traced most of the virus’s evasive ability to a trio of mutations in the portion of the spike protein that #SARS-CoV-2 uses to adhere to host cells. However, it is not clear whether these changes make the vaccine less effective at preventing #COVID-19.
Source:
Neutralizing Activity of BNT162b2-Elicited Serum — Preliminary Report | NEJM
▻https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2102017