The co-founder of BioNTech said on Tuesday that it was “very likely” that his vaccine against the virus works against the crushed weight found in Britain, but that it could also change the vaccine if necessary in six weeks.
“Scientifically, it is very likely that the immune response with this vaccine can address the new virus variant,” Ugur Sahin said.
But if need be, “in principle the beauty of the messenger ‘s technology is that we can just start designing a vaccine that is completely similar to this new trend – we may be able to deliver a new vaccine. technically within six weeks. ”
Sahin said the variant found in Britain has nine mutations, instead of just one as usual.
Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the vaccine developed by Pfizer would be effective as it contains “more than 1,000 amino acids, of which only nine have changed, so that means that 99 per cent of the protein remains the same “.
He said tests are being run on the contrary, with results expected in two weeks.
“We have scientific confidence that the vaccine can protect but we will only know if the test has been carried out […] we will publish the data as soon as possible, ”he said.
Various new viruses
The World Health Organization announced late on Saturday that it was “in close contact with UK officials about the new # COVID19 virus variant” and promised to update governments and the public as more is learned.
The new strain was identified in the south-east of England in September and has been spreading in the region ever since, a WHO official told the BBC on Sunday.
“What we understand is that it has made more of a transmission, in terms of its transmission capability,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director of Covid-19.
Studies are underway to better understand how fast it spreads and whether it is “related to the variant itself, or a combination of behavioral factors,” she said.
She said the strain was identified in Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia, where there was one case that no longer spread.
“The longer this virus spreads, the more chances it will have to change,” she said. “So we really need to do everything we can to stop it spreading.”
Viruses circulate regularly, and scientists have found thousands of different mutations among samples of the virus that causes Covid-19. Many of these changes have no effect on how easily the virus spreads or how severe the symptoms are.