The new version’s impact on vaccines may be clearer relatively soon
Travel restrictions and other snap defenses that countries have thrown against Omicron, the new Covid-19 variant, are buying time for scientists to answer important questions that could avert another wave of deaths.
Laboratories in Europe, the Americas and Africa are preparing tests to see how the new version is likely to behave in people who have been vaccinated or already infected. Real-world research will also be important, as health officials closely monitor the outbreak in South Africa to determine how much the new version will be spreading as it spreads and whether it is more dangerous or deadly.
Scientists and policymakers said Friday that the questions would take weeks to be answered. The search for understanding begins in the variant’s dramatic pattern of 50 mutations, more than 30 of which occur on the virus’s spike protein, the weapon used to attack the cells of COVID-19 victims. This will continue through laboratory work and eventually through the observation of disease and transmission patterns in real life.
Wendy Barkley, head of the infectious disease department at Imperial College London, said what is clear so far is that a group of mutations have come together that can make omicrons spread more quickly.
“Taken together on paper, it is very biologically plausible that this virus has increased transmission potential,” Barclay said at a briefing on Friday. He said researchers must apply the knowledge gained over more than a year of in-depth study of the virus. “That’s where you start, and then you look at epidemiological and laboratory-based studies to try and support that kind of approach.”
willy virus
A virus’s first job is to survive in its hosts, and nature has programmed them to change shape. SARS-CoV-2 has been growing and changing since it was first identified, with the first version of the concern – Alpha – designated in December 2020. Omicron, formerly known as B.1.1.529, is the fifth type of concern. Nominated by the World Health Organization.
The WHO said on Friday that Omicron may have a growth advantage over others, as it has been found to be at faster rates than in previous surges. The WHO said it may pose a higher risk of reinfection than other types of concern.
Omicron’s spread in South Africa suggests it may be more permeable, said Sharon Peacock, professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, who also heads the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium. “When the health ministry saw that the numbers were doubling every day, the question they asked was, ‘Well, where are these cases coming from?
Those questions and prompt surveillance by South Africa and its neighbors put the rest of the world in a position to buy more time, said Jeffrey Barrett, director of COVID-19 genomics, when the delta variant was emerging in India. Initiatives at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK
“He found it, understood it was a problem and told the world very fast,” Barrett said. “It took many, many weeks for the extremely horrific India wave before it became clear what was happening, and by that time the delta had established itself in many parts of the world.”
knowledge sprint
The impact of the new version on vaccines may become apparent relatively soon. BioNTech SE, which works with Pfizer Inc on the world’s best-selling COVID vaccine, said it is starting lab studies on the variant and within two weeks the first data on how it interacts with the vaccine. needed.
BioNTech and Pfizer have long promised that they will be able to produce a new version of their vaccine within 100 days, if necessary.
Moderna Inc. is also studying how well its current vaccine booster dose neutralizes Omicron, with data likely in the coming weeks. The company on Friday said it is also working on a high-dose version of the booster, a new multivalent booster and a new booster exclusive to Omicron. Moderna said it is typically able to put new experimental vaccines to trial in 60 to 90 days.
Mutation, Roche Holding AG and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. Antibody therapies such as K Ronaprev could help Omicron to overcome treatments that have become a mainstay of therapy for people who can’t produce an adequate immune response on their own, ICL’s Barkley and other scientists said.
Roche researchers are studying the new version, spokeswoman Carsten Klein said, and it’s too early to say how it will interact with the antibody cocktail.
GlaxoSmithKline plc, which markets a COVID antibody with Vir Biotechnology Inc., said it believes its antibody will likely work against the variant because it targets the part of the spike protein that is involved in several different genes. is shared between different, distantly related coronaviruses. The company is working urgently to confirm that in the laboratory, it said in a statement.
Antiviral Arsenal
Even if the new version produces resistance to vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, doctors won’t be out of arms.
Barkley said antivirals such as the experimental pill being developed by Pfizer Inc. will probably still work.
This is because those pills work in the body. Instead of targeting the virus’s spike protein, as vaccines and other treatments do, they attack it differently to stop the virus from multiplying. This makes the new version of the spike-protein mutation less likely to resist bullets.
“There is no mutation that would indicate a change in susceptibility,” Barkley said.
Antivirals are not yet approved for use. Pfizer filed for emergency use authorization for the drug in the US on November 16; A similar review began three days later in the European Union.
A second pill, from Merck & Co., ran into an obstacle after test results showed it to be less effective than was thought. US Food and Drug Administration staff questioned whether it could cause birth defects, bone and cartilage toxicity, and genetic mutations. A panel of FDA advisors will meet on Tuesday to review the pill.
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