The new variant COVID-19 defeats plasma treatment, may reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa could elude the antibodies that attack it in blood plasma treatments from previously recovered patients and could reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccine line, they said on Wednesday. scientists.

Researchers are stepping up to determine whether vaccines being rolled out around the world are effective against the so-called 501Y.V2 variant, identified by South African genomics experts late last year in Nelson Mandela Bay.

“This lineage presents a complete escape of three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,” wrote the team of scientists from three South African universities working with the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in a paper published in the bioRxiv magazine.

“In addition, 501Y.V2 shows a substantial or complete leakage of COVID-19 convalescent plasma neutralizing antibodies,” they wrote, adding that their findings “reveal the possibility of reinfection … and may foreshadow the reduction of the effectiveness of current peak-based vaccines. ”

The 501Y.V2 variant is 50% more infectious than the previous ones, South African researchers said this week. It has already spread to at least 20 countries since it was reported to the World Health Organization in late December.

It is one of the new variants discovered in recent months, including others found in England and Brazil.

The variant is the main driver of South Africa’s second wave of COVID-19 infections, which reached a new daily peak above 21,000 cases earlier this month, well above the first wave, before from falling to about 12,000 a day.

Convalescent blood plasma from previous patients has not been shown to be effective when administered to critically ill patients in need of intensive care for COVID-19, but is approved in several countries as an emergency measure.

British scientists and politicians have expressed concern that vaccines that are being rolled out or under development may be less effective against the variant.

The paper said the effectiveness of current 501Y.V2 vaccines, which would only be determined by large-scale clinical trials, should be looked at. But the results showed the need to design new vaccines to deal with the evolving threat, he said.