Tag Archives: coronavirus variant

South Africa detects new coronavirus variant, still studying its mutations

By Alexander Winning

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African scientists have detected a new coronavirus variant with multiple mutations but are yet to establish whether it is more contagious or able to overcome the immunity provided by vaccines or prior infection.

The new variant, known as C.1.2, was first detected in May and has now spread to most South African provinces and to seven other countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania, according to research which is yet to be peer-reviewed.

It contains many mutations associated in other variants with increased transmissibility and reduced sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies, but they occur in a different mix and scientists are not yet sure how they affect the behavior of the virus. Laboratory tests are underway to establish how well the variant is neutralized by antibodies.

South Africa was the first country to detect the Beta variant, one of only four labelled “of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Beta is believed to spread more easily than the original version of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and there is evidence vaccines work less well against it, leading some countries to restrict travel to and from South Africa.

PANDEMIC ‘FAR FROM OVER’

Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist and one of the authors of the research on C.1.2, said its emergence tells us “this pandemic is far from over and that this virus is still exploring ways to potentially get better at infecting us.”

He said people should not be overly alarmed at this stage and that variants with more mutations were bound to emerge further into the pandemic.

Genomic sequencing data from South Africa show the C.1.2 variant was still nowhere near displacing the dominant Delta variant in July, the latest month for which a large number of samples was available.

In July C.1.2 accounted for 3% of samples versus 1% in June, whereas Delta accounted for 67% in June and 89% in July.

Delta is the fastest and fittest variant the world has encountered, and it is upending assumptions about COVID-19 even as nations loosen restrictions and reopen their economies.

Lessells said C.1.2 may have more immune evasion properties than Delta, based on its pattern of mutations, and that the findings had been flagged to the WHO.

A spokesman for South Africa’s health department declined to comment on the research.

South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign got off to a slow start, with only around 14% of its adult population fully vaccinated so far.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Tim Cocks and Gareth Jones)

France imposes quarantine on UK visitors ahead of summer tourist season

By Matthieu Protard

PARIS (Reuters) -France on Wednesday declared a mandatory quarantine period for people coming from Britain, due to the increasing prevalence there of a highly contagious coronavirus variant first detected in India.

France follows Austria, which said on Tuesday it was banning direct flights and tourist visits from Britain, and Germany, which said on Friday that anyone entering from the UK would have to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.

“There is a new situation with the progression of the so-called Indian variant in the United Kingdom,” said government spokesman Gabriel Attal. “(France) will set up compulsory isolation for people coming from the United Kingdom.”

The isolation will need to last seven days, Clement Beaune, France’s junior minister for European Affairs, said on Twitter, adding visitors would also need to present a COVID-19 test carried out less than 48 hours before departure.

The measures are expected to come into force on Monday.

Coronavirus infections in Britain have been rising again, but the overall incidence is still low in a country with one of the world’s fastest vaccine rollouts. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients fell last week to its lowest level since September.

Clusters of the B.1.617 Indian variant have grown quickly, however, to 3,424 as of last Thursday, up by 2,111 from similar numbers the previous week. The Indian variant has been reported in at least 17 countries.

The French government’s announcement will be a blow to parts of the beleaguered tourism industry, which is desperate for a return to normal business ahead of the peak summer season.

“It’s reasonable in terms of saving the French summer but will be very punishing for those regions which depend on British holidaymakers,” said Ge Kusters, owner of Le Paradis campsite in the Dordogne area and president of the regional campsite union.

“More financial support is going to have to follow.”

British tourists had been due to be allowed to visit France without restrictions from June 9 if they carried a certificate of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 PCR test.

Some 13 million Britons visited France every year before the coronavirus crisis began in early 2020, more than any other nationality, according to official data.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Matthieu Protard; Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont; Editing by Dominique Vidalon, Mark Heinrich and Peter Cooney)

Brazil detects first case of South African variant as COVID-19 deaths soar

By Pedro Fonseca

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil has recorded its first confirmed case of the highly contagious coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa, a fresh danger sign for a country already ravaged by the world’s highest daily death toll fueled by a widespread local variant.

Last week, scientists at the Butantan biomedical institute said the case, identified in a woman in Sao Paulo state, might be a new local variant. Further analysis confirmed it as the first known local case of the variant widely circulating in South Africa and elsewhere.

Scientists fear a showdown between the South African variant and the already rampant Brazilian variant, known as P.1, both of which are more contagious and possibly more deadly than the original version of the coronavirus and have led to accelerated COVID-19 surges.

“It could be a huge duel,” said Maria Carolina Sabbaga, one of Butantan’s coordinators for studying new variants. “I think P.1 has already taken over. I’m not sure if the South African will overtake P.1, let’s see.”

The South African variant in studies appears to lessen protection from current vaccines.

Brazil is in the midst of a brutal COVID-19 wave, setting records for deaths on a weekly basis. On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported a single-day record of 4,195 deaths.

The outbreak in South America’s largest country may overtake the United States to become the world’s deadliest, some medical experts predict.

José Patané, a Butantan researcher, said the South African variant most likely arrived in Brazil after traveling through Europe toward the end of 2020.

The first local diagnosis, a woman in her 30s in the city of Sorocaba, had not traveled abroad or come into contact with someone who did, indicating local community transmission, researchers said.

SLOW VACCINE ROLLOUT

A possible surge of the South African variant could further complicate Brazil’s slow vaccine rollout.

Brazil’s COVID-19 immunization program is built around the vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc and China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd, which have proven effective against the Brazilian variant in preliminary studies, according to officials.

Research released on Wednesday showed the Sinovac shot was 50% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in a study of nearly 68,000 health workers in Manaus, where the P.1 strain first emerged as the predominant variant. The results support preliminary findings of separate research reported by Reuters last month.

In studies, the South African variant appears to lower the level of protection offered by the AstraZeneca shot and other available vaccines.

Immunizations have been slow to ramp up in Brazil after the government dragged its feet last year in acquiring vaccines while other countries raced to secure supplies.

President Jair Bolsonaro has shifted his tone on vaccines, touting shots he had until recently disdained. But the far-right former army captain continues to oppose social distancing and mask requirements that health experts see as essential for curbing virus transmission.

Under pressure from business leaders desperate to vaccinate their workforces and reopen operations, the lower house of Congress has taken up a controversial bill to allow private-sector vaccine purchases.

A version of the bill, first passed on Tuesday, would allow businesses to acquire vaccines to inoculate their employees as long as they donate the same number of shots to the public health system. Under current rules, businesses could only do that once the country has fully vaccinated risk groups outlined in a national immunization plan.

Proposed amendments to new legislation are still pending in the lower house before the bill goes to the Senate.

Bolsonaro is set to meet with a group of business leaders including BTG Pactual founder Andre Esteves and Banco Bradesco Chairman Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi later on Wednesday, local media reported, with the private vaccine dose plan among the items on the agenda.

(Reporting by Pedro Fonseca; Writing by Jake Spring; Editing by Brad Haynes and Bill Berkrot)

COVID variant ‘taking over’ UK and likely to dominate elsewhere: expert

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – A coronavirus variant first found a few months ago in Britain is now “taking over” and causing 98% of all cases in the UK, the scientist leading the country’s variant-tracking research said on Thursday.

Sharon Peacock said the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7, also appears to be gaining a firm grip in many of the 100 or so other countries it has spread to in the past few months.

“It’s around 50% more transmissible – hence its success in really taking over the country,” said Peacock, director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium of scientists monitoring mutations in the coronavirus.

“We now know that it has spread across the UK and causes nearly all of the cases of COVID-19 – about 98%,” she told an online briefing for Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine.

“It appears to be the case that the other variants are not getting a foothold in this country.”

The B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in September 2020, has 23 mutations in its genetic code – a relatively high number of changes – and is thought by experts to be 40%-70% more transmissible than previously dominant variants.

Peacock also noted data released on Wednesday from a UK study which found that B.1.1.7 has “significantly higher” mortality, with death rates among those infected with it between 30% and 100% greater than among those infected with previous variants.

“There is a small increase in the likelihood of death from the variant,” she said.

The World Health Organization says B.1.1.7 is one of several “variants of concern,” along with others that have emerged in South Africa and Brazil. The variants are mutant versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, which has already killed more than 2.7 million people in the pandemic.

B.1.1.7 has spread to about 100 countries, according to WHO data, and some of those, including France, Denmark and the United States, have reported swift rises in the proportion of their COVID-19 cases being caused by it.

Peacock said evidence from the UK suggests B.1.1.7. is likely to become dominant elsewhere too.

“Because of its transmissibility, once it’s introduced, it does have that advantage over other circulating variants – so it is the case that B.1.1.7 appears to be travelling around the world and really expanding where it lands.”

Public Health England (PHE) also said on Thursday that a new coronavirus variant had been identified in the UK in two people who had recently been in Antigua. PHE said it shared some traits of other variants but was not classed as concerning for now.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, Editing by William Maclean)

T cell response to virus variants remains potent; Asthma does not raise severe COVID-19 risk

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Immune system T cell responses to variants remain potent

While worrisome coronavirus variants identified in Brazil, South Africa, and California have mutations that might help them resist antibody treatments and vaccines, the immune system’s T cell responses to the variants are unaffected in recovered patients and in people who have received the Moderna Inc or Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccines, new data show. “We think this is really good news,” said Alessandro Sette of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, whose team reported the findings on Monday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. The T cells induced by vaccines can recognize pieces of the virus spike protein, while T cells induced by previous infection recognize multiple parts of the virus, including the spike and other proteins, Sette said. “These pieces are largely not changed/mutated in the variants,” he explained. “This means that the T cell responses recognize the ‘ancestral’ sequence and the variants equally well.” While circulating memory T cells would probably not prevent infection, they could reduce COVID-19 severity, he added. T cell responses are known to be linked with milder COVID-19, he noted, and may contribute to limiting COVID-19 severity induced by variants that partially or largely escape neutralizing antibodies.

Asthma does not increase COVID-19 risks

Asthma itself is not a risk factor for hospitalization or more severe COVID-19, and people whose asthma is triggered by allergies may actually be at lower risk, according to new research presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology virtual annual meeting. Researchers at Stanford University studied 5,596 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 from March to September 2020. Of these, 11% were hospitalized, including 100 patients with asthma. After accounting for patients’ other medical conditions that have been linked with more severe COVID-19 illness, including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, “asthma was no longer a risk factor for hospitalization,” said Dr. Lauren Eggert. Among patients who were hospitalized, asthma was not significantly associated with disease severity, she said. Researchers also found that patients with allergic asthma were nearly half as likely as patients with other types of asthma to need hospitalization. A possible explanation, Eggert said, is that in allergic asthma, the immune system “downregulates,” or reduces the production, of the ACE2 proteins on cell surfaces that are a major port of entry for the coronavirus.

Antibodies to variants may offer cross-protection

Antibodies to a newer, more infectious coronavirus variant might prevent infection by earlier variants, laboratory studies suggest. In test tube experiments, researchers studied the neutralizing effects of antibodies obtained from people infected with COVID-19 in the first wave of the pandemic in South Africa, when the initial version of the virus was predominant, and in survivors from the second wave, when a more infectious, harder-to-treat new variant predominated. First-wave antibodies neutralized the first-wave virus but not second-wave virus. As expected, second-wave antibodies neutralized second-wave viruses. They also neutralized the first-wave virus, although not as potently, according to a paper posted on Saturday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. In a news conference on Wednesday, co-author Alex Sigal from the Africa Health Research Institute said the findings offer hope that vaccines based on the variant could protect against this and other variants circulating worldwide. Pfizer, AstraZeneca Plc, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are already developing vaccines based on the variant identified in South Africa. Salim Abdool Karim, a top government adviser on COVID-19, predicted that by the end of 2021 most vaccine manufacturers will have adapted their shots, accordingly.

UK finds vaccines protect elderly

The Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are more than 80% effective at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations in people over age 80 after one dose, Public Health England said on Monday, citing a study released on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The UK study also found that in people over age 70, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are approximately 85% to 90% effective at preventing symptomatic disease. Pfizer vaccine recipients in that age group who did acquire symptomatic infections had a 44% lower risk of hospitalization and a 51% lower risk of death compared to unvaccinated patients. Because the two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine had only recently been introduced, researchers only had data after one dose. The effect against symptomatic disease was approximately 60% to 75%, and there was also a protective effect against hospitalization, the researchers said. They noted that the AstraZeneca data was gathered while a more-infectious variant was predominant in the UK. Britain’s use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on elderly people contrasts with many European countries, which have cited a lack of clinical trial data for their decision not to use it on older people.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks, Kate Kelland, and Alexander Winning; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

‘When will it end?’: How a changing virus is reshaping scientists’ views on COVID-19

By Julie Steenhuysen and Kate Kelland

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chris Murray, a University of Washington disease expert whose projections on COVID-19 infections and deaths are closely followed worldwide, is changing his assumptions about the course of the pandemic.

Murray had until recently been hopeful that the discovery of several effective vaccines could help countries achieve herd immunity, or nearly eliminate transmission through a combination of inoculation and previous infection. But in the last month, data from a vaccine trial in South Africa showed not only that a rapidly-spreading coronavirus variant could dampen the effect of the vaccine, it could also evade natural immunity in people who had been previously infected.

“I couldn’t sleep” after seeing the data, Murray, director of the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Reuters. “When will it end?” he asked himself, referring to the pandemic. He is currently updating his model to account for variants’ ability to escape natural immunity and expects to provide new projections as early as this week.

A new consensus is emerging among scientists, according to Reuters interviews with 18 specialists who closely track the pandemic or are working to curb its impact. Many described how the breakthrough late last year of two vaccines with around 95% efficacy against COVID-19 had initially sparked hope that the virus could be largely contained, similar to the way measles has been.

But, they say, data in recent weeks on new variants from South Africa and Brazil has undercut that optimism. They now believe that SARS-CoV-2 will not only remain with us as an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in communities, but will likely cause a significant burden of illness and death for years to come.

As a result, the scientists said, people could expect to continue to take measures such as routine mask-wearing and avoiding crowded places during COVID-19 surges, especially for people at high risk.

Even after vaccination, “I still would want to wear a mask if there was a variant out there,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, said in an interview. “All you need is one little flick of a variant (sparking) another surge, and there goes your prediction” about when life gets back to normal.

Some scientists, including Murray, acknowledge that the outlook could improve. The new vaccines, which have been developed at record speed, still appear to prevent hospitalizations and death even when new variants are the cause of infection. Many vaccine developers are working on booster shots and new inoculations that could preserve a high level of efficacy against the variants. And, scientists say there is still much to be learned about the immune system’s ability to combat the virus.

Already, COVID-19 infection rates have declined in many countries since the start of 2021, with some dramatic reductions in severe illness and hospitalizations among the first groups of people to be vaccinated.

WORSE THAN FLU

Murray said if the South African variant, or similar mutants, continue to spread rapidly, the number of COVID-19 cases resulting in hospitalization or death this coming winter could be four times higher than the flu. The rough estimate assumes a 65% effective vaccine given to half of a country’s population. In a worst-case scenario, that could represent as many as 200,000 U.S. deaths related to COVID-19 over the winter period, based on federal government estimates of annual flu fatalities.

His institute’s current forecast, which runs to June 1, assumes there will be an additional 62,000 U.S. deaths and 690,000 global deaths from COVID-19 by that point. The model includes assumptions about vaccination rates as well as the transmissibility of the South African and Brazilian variants.

The shift in thinking among scientists has influenced more cautious government statements about when the pandemic will end. Britain last week said it expects a slow emergence from one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, despite having one of the fastest vaccination drives.

U.S. government predictions of a return to a more normal lifestyle have been repeatedly pushed back, most recently from late summer to Christmas, and then to March 2022. Israel issues “Green Pass” immunity documents to people who have recovered from COVID-19 or been vaccinated, allowing them back into hotels or theaters. The documents are only valid for six months because it’s not clear how long immunity will last.

“What does it mean to be past the emergency phase of this pandemic?,” said Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. While some experts have asked whether countries could completely eradicate any case of COVID-19 through vaccines and stringent lockdowns, Baral sees the goals as more modest, but still meaningful. “In my mind, it’s that hospitals aren’t full, the ICUs aren’t full, and people aren’t tragically passing,” he said.

“SCIENTIFIC WHIPLASH”

From the beginning, the new coronavirus has been a moving target.

Early in the pandemic, leading scientists warned that the virus could become endemic and “may never go away,” including Dr. Michael Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program.

Yet they had much to learn, including whether it would be possible to develop a vaccine against the virus and how quickly it would mutate. Would it be more like measles, which can be kept almost entirely at bay in communities with high rates of inoculation, or flu, which infects millions globally each year?

For much of 2020, many scientists were surprised and reassured that the coronavirus had not changed significantly enough to become more transmissible, or deadly.

A major breakthrough came in November. Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE as well as Moderna Inc said their vaccines were around 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 in clinical trials, an efficacy rate that is much higher than any flu shot.

At least a few of the scientists Reuters interviewed said even in the wake of those results, they hadn’t expected the vaccines to wipe out the virus. But many told Reuters that the data raised hope within the scientific community that it would be possible to virtually eliminate COVID-19, if only the world could be vaccinated quickly enough.

“We all felt quite optimistic before Christmas with those first vaccines,” said Azra Ghani, chair in infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London. “We didn’t necessarily expect such high-efficacy vaccines to be possible in that first generation.”

The optimism proved short-lived. In late December, the UK warned of a new, more transmissible variant that was quickly becoming the dominant form of the coronavirus in the country. Around the same time, researchers learned of the impact of the faster-spreading variants in South Africa and in Brazil.

Phil Dormitzer, a top vaccine scientist at Pfizer, told Reuters in November that the U.S. drugmaker’s vaccine success signaled the virus was “vulnerable to immunization” in what he called “a breakthrough for humanity.” By early January, he acknowledged the variants heralded “a new chapter” in which companies will have to constantly monitor for mutations that could dampen the effect of vaccines.

In late January, the impact on vaccines became even clearer. Novavax’s clinical trial data showed its vaccine was 89% effective in a UK trial, but just 50% effective at preventing COVID-19 in South Africa. That was followed a week later by data showing the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine offered only limited protection from mild disease against the South African variant.

The most recent change of heart was considerable, several of the scientists told Reuters. Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego, described it as “scientific whiplash”: In December, he had believed it was plausible to achieve so-called “functional eradication” of the coronavirus, similar to measles.

Now, “getting as many people vaccinated as possible is still the same answer and the same path forward as it was on December 1 or January 1,” Crotty said, “but the expected outcome isn’t the same.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Kate Kelland in London; additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Cassell Bryan-Low)

U.S. tops 18 million COVID-19 cases as officials eye new virus variant in UK

By Susan Heavey and Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Total U.S. COVID-19 cases surpassed 18 million on Tuesday as health officials tried to tamper fears about a new, highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom.

Reports of the new virus variant in England, which prompted a pre-Christmas lockdown and caused dozens of countries to close their borders to British travelers this week, have spurred talks among government officials of mandatory COVID-19 testing for travelers from the UK and a possible quarantine mandate.

News of the coronavirus mutation comes as the United States deals with a surge in new infections that is overwhelming hospitals in some states. The latest million cases were recorded in just six days, according to a Reuters tally, as U.S. COVID-19 fatalities approach 320,000, the most in the world.

Some U.S. health officials on Tuesday sought to assuage fears about the new virus variation, saying that it should be monitored, but that its discovery should not be cause for despair.

U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News on Tuesday that both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which received U.S. emergency use authorizations this month, should be effective at preventing illness from the recently discovered variant of the virus. He also said it did not seem to have different physical effects on individuals.

Moderna Inc and BioNTech SE, which worked with Pfizer Inc to develop its vaccine, are scrambling to test their shots against the variant, but expressed confidence in them.

“Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine can also deal with this virus variant,” BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin told reporters.

More than 600,000 Americans, mostly healthcare workers, had received their first COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some states began vaccinating long-term care facility residents on Monday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert who received the Moderna vaccine on camera on Tuesday, said surveillance is necessary to monitor spread of the British variant, but that officials should not overreact.

“Travel bans are really rather draconian things to do,” Fauci told ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”

Along with Fauci, Azar and National Institutes of Health head Dr. Francis Collins rolled up their sleeves for the Moderna shot on live television on Tuesday.

‘EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE ON THE TABLE’

State and federal officials are strategizing how to prevent the spread of the new virus variant in the United States, considering such measures as screening passengers on flights from England or, at the federal level, mandating quarantine for travelers upon arrival.

The U.S. government is considering requiring all passengers traveling from the UK receive a negative test within 72 hours of departure as a condition of entry, airline and U.S. officials briefed on the matter said on Monday.

Michael Osterholm, a pandemic adviser for Joe Biden, on Tuesday said all options need to be considered to stem the spread of the new variant, and urged the Trump administration to come up with a plan now.

“We really need to develop a national response,” he told CNN. “Everything needs to be on the table.”

He said the U.S. could mandate a 14-day quarantine period for travelers from the UK as an added precaution beyond requiring a negative test result.

With no national plan and state and local governments already overwhelmed, it was unclear who could enact and enforce such quarantines, Osterholm said.

“Nothing will stop this virus from transmitting from country to country. Our job is to slow it down,” he added.

British Airways, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic said on Monday they will allow only passengers who test negative for the coronavirus to fly to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Monday ordered travelers arriving from the UK, South Africa or other “countries with circulation of a new, potentially more contagious COVID-19 variation” to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in his state.

“This common-sense measure will protect Washingtonians in our fight against COVID-19,” Inslee said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert, Peter Szekely, Anurag Maan and Gabriella Borter; Writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Drugmakers rush to test whether vaccines stop coronavirus variant

By John Miller and Patricia Weiss

ZURICH/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Drug makers including BioNTech and Moderna are scrambling to test their COVID-19 vaccines against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus that is raging in Britain, the latest challenge in the breakneck race to curb the pandemic.

Ugur Sahin, chief executive of Germany’s BioNTech which with partner Pfizer took less than a year to get a vaccine approved, said on Tuesday he needs another two weeks to know if his shot can stop the mutant variant of the virus.

Moderna expects immunity from its vaccine to protect against the variant and is performing more tests in coming weeks to confirm, the company said in a statement to CNN. Moderna did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage may be up to 70% more infectious and more of a concern for children. It has sown chaos in Britain, prompting a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with Europe and threatening to further isolate the island country.

Sahin said there are nine mutations on the virus.

While he does not believe any are significant enough to skirt the protection afforded by BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, which was approved by the European Union on Monday, he said another 14 days or so of study and data collection are needed before offering a definitive answer.

“Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine can also deal with this virus variant,” he said on a call with reporters.

“The vaccine contains more than 1,270 amino acids, and only 9 of them are changed (in the mutant virus). That means that 99% of the protein is still the same.”

Germany’s CureVac said it does not expect the variant to affect the efficacy of its experimental shot, which is based on the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology used by Pfizer-BioNTech.

It started late stage clinical trials on its vaccine candidate last week and is constantly reviewing variants, which the company said are common as viruses spread.

Even though there are multiple mutations, BioNTech’s Sahin said, most of the sites on the virus that are recognized by the body’s T-cell response are unchanged, and multiple antibody binding sites are also conserved.

MRNA ADVANTAGE

In the event that the variant presents vaccine developers with an unexpected challenge, an advantage of mRNA is that scientists can quickly re-engineer genetic material in the shot to match that of the mutated protein, whereas modifying traditional vaccines would require extra steps.

“In principle, the beauty of the mRNA technology is we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation,” Sahin said.

“We could be able to provide a new vaccine technically within six weeks. Of course, this is not only a technical question. We have to deal with how regulators… would see that.”

Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said on Saturday vaccines appeared to be adequate in generating an immune response to the variant of the coronavirus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it will convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter the mutation.