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The pandemic has taken a new turn of the script with the appearance of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, such as

the British or South African

, which have experts on edge.

Not only are they concerned about their greater transmission capacity or the possibility that they cause greater lethality, but also their effect on newly released vaccines and those that are in development.

In this sense, Moderna, one of the companies with authorized Covid vaccines in the market, has just announced, in a statement, that despite the fact that, according to the studies carried out, the product "maintains its neutralizing activity against the emerging variants identified "will study new strategies to increase the protection it confers against new strains.

In the statement, the US company assures that although it expects "the 100 µg dose to be protective against emerging strains detected to date," in its studies it has detected a decrease in the neutralizing capacity of the product against variant B. 1,351 (first identified in the Republic of South Africa) and compared to earlier variants.

Specifically, "a six-fold reduction in neutralization titers was observed with variant B.1.351" -

"Despite this reduction, the levels of neutralizing titles with B.1.351 remain above the levels that are expected to be protective," the text underlines.

As a precaution, "Moderna will launch a clinical program to increase immunity to emerging variants," the text continues, clarifying that the company "will test an additional booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) to study the capacity to further increase neutralizing titers against emerging strains ".

The company also "is promoting an emerging boost candidate variant (mRNA -1273.351) against variant B.1.351," he clarifies.

Two recent studies, still preliminary and pending publication, had already indicated this week that the variant described in South Africa seems to be less susceptible to the action of the antibodies that are generated against the disease in the body both after the infection has passed and after having received the vaccine.

The variants detected accumulate different mutations, many of them located in the spike -S-, the key that the virus uses to enter cells and take advantage of its machinery to replicate and, also, the target to which most of the viruses are directed. vaccines that have been developed or are in process.

Fortunately, experts say, this target is large and it would take a large number of mutations to change it and for the body to stop recognizing it after receiving an immunization.

Furthermore, the coronavirus is not one of the pathogens that most rapidly accumulates significant changes in its genome, although its ability to 'create' variants is higher than that which had been determined at first.

At the moment, experts say that there is no cause for alarm, although they do recommend an exhaustive monitoring of the evolution of the virus.

"At the moment, there is no reason to think that the available vaccines do not protect against the variants"

, reassured Federico Martinón-Torres a few days ago, head of the Pediatrics service of the Santiago University Hospital Complex and clinical researcher.

"Even if a part of the virus changes, it is very likely that the immune response induced by other components of the vaccine is equally protective," he added.

On the other hand, as Isabel Sola, head of the Coronavirus Laboratory of the National Center for Biotechnology of the CSIC, explained in a recent interview, even if the virus is capable of completely changing protein S, the reaction of the science could be relatively fast.

Thus, the researcher recalls that many of the vaccines currently under development are of the

recombinant

type

- created through biotechnology - so "the sequence of the protein S could be changed for another if necessary."

A few weeks ago, Pfizer also reported that its laboratory tests had shown the vaccine to be effective with a mutation in the virus, called N501Y, which has been identified in new variants from the UK and South Africa.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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