Tag Archives: South African variant

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)

Pfizer study deals new blow to South Africa’s vaccine hopes

By Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Scientists will meet on Thursday to advise South Africa’s government on its next steps after a study suggested the dominant local coronavirus variant may reduce antibody protection from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by two-thirds.

The laboratory study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, dealt a new blow to the country hardest-hit by the pandemic on the African continent.

The government and its advisers must weigh whether to wait for vaccines that might be more effective against the more infectious 501Y.V2 variant, or try to vaccinate people quickly to avert further infections and deaths.

South Africa had been counting on the Pfizer shot, developed with German partner BioNTech, to step up its vaccination program after administering the first Johnson & Johnson (J&J) doses on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, it placed AstraZeneca vaccinations on hold because of interim data showing its jab offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness from the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year.

Officials are more confident about the J&J shot because it was shown to be effective in preventing severe illness in the local leg of a large global trial.

The detailed laboratory study published on Wednesday took into account all key mutations of the 501Y.V2 variant. A paper published in late January assessed the impact of only three key mutations of the variant on the Pfizer vaccine.

Scientists said that because the new study’s findings come from a laboratory, it is not easy to extrapolate what they might mean for the shot’s efficacy in the real world.

“Our scientists will be meeting to discuss it (the study) and they will advise the minister,” health ministry spokesman Popo Maja said.

Barry Schoub, a professor and chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on vaccines, said the committee would discuss the study alongside information on other COVID-19 vaccines.

Asked to comment on the findings, he said: “The Pfizer vaccine is enormously effective at 95%, so even if there is quite a significant reduction there still will be quite a bit of remnant efficacy left.”

“It is very likely that it will protect to a reasonable extent, certainly against severe illness and mild to moderate to some extent,” he said.

“STRONG ENOUGH”

Richard Mihigo, an immunization official at the World Health Organization’s Africa office, told a news conference the antibody response to the variant in the Pfizer study was “strong enough”.

Linda-Gail Bekker, co-lead investigator of the South African arm of J&J’s global trial, said she would recommend rolling out the Pfizer vaccine but monitoring it in the same way as the J&J shot, which is being administered in an “implementation study” targeting up to 500,000 health workers to further test it in the field.

“We should make sure we do see the effectiveness we (are) hoping for,” she told Reuters.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday South Africa was expecting 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine initially and about 7 million doses by June.

A spokesman for regulator SAHPRA said Pfizer’s registration application was under review and declined further comment.

South Africa, with nearly 1.5 million cases and about 48,500 deaths, has recorded almost half the COVID-19 fatalities and over a third of confirmed infections in Africa. It lagged richer Western nations in launching its immunization campaign.

The government plans to vaccinate 40 million people – two-thirds of the population.

“Luckily there are a range of vaccines available and what we will do is work with the national authorities to understand the implications of this (study) and see what they need to do,” the WHO’s Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, said.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Wendell Roelf in Cape Town; Additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Aaron Ross in Dakar; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Angus MacSwan, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Timothy Heritage)

WHO lists AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.

A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.

“We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks must be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer/BioNTech’s, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO late in December.

Nearly 109 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and more than 2.5 million have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

(Reporting by John Revill, John Miller, Michael Shields in Zurich, Kate Kelland in London, Editing by William Maclean)

UK detects South African coronavirus variant in people with no travel links

By Reuters Staff

LONDON (Reuters) – Eleven people in different regions have tested positive for the South African coronavirus variant without having any links to people who have travelled recently, prompting mass testing in the areas to contain the outbreak.

The government said on Monday the cases were now self-isolating and robust contact tracing had taken place to trace their contacts and ask them to self-isolate.

Residents in eight postcodes – three in London; two in the south east and one in the West Midlands, east of England, and the North West – would now be tested for the new coronavirus whether they are showing any symptoms or not under what is known as “surge testing” it said.

“Every person over 16 living in these locations is strongly encouraged to take a COVID test this week, whether they are showing symptoms or not,” the government said in a statement.

The government said in January it had detected cases of both the South African and Brazilian variants, but all were linked to travel.

In total, Public Health England said it had identified 105 cases of the South African variant since Dec 22.

All viruses mutate frequently, and scientists have identified several variants of the novel coronavirus found to be more transmissible than the original strain.

The emergence of more infectious variants has raised questions over whether vaccines will prove as effective in containing them.

Scientists have said the South African variant appears to be more transmissible, but there is no evidence it causes more severe disease. But several laboratory studies have found that it reduces vaccine and antibody therapy efficacy.

Clinical trial data on two COVID-19 vaccines – from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson – released on Saturday showed they had less ability to protect against the illness caused by the South African variant.

But the Surrey Local Resilience Forum said there was no evidence the regulated vaccine would not protect against it. The Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are being rolled out across Britain.

South Carolina reports two South African variant COVID-19 cases, first in U.S.

By Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) – State health officials in South Carolina on Thursday said they found two cases of COVID-19 linked to a more transmissible coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, the first cases of the mutated virus discovered in the United Sates.

Viruses are constantly changing, but the presence of the South African variant in the United States is especially concerning because several laboratory studies have shown that it reduces vaccine effectiveness.

So far, vaccines made by Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc/BioNTech still appear protective against this variant of the coronavirus, but the companies this week said they are considering making new versions of their shots just in case. Moderna also plans to test giving a third shot of its vaccine to bolster antibody levels.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that it is aware of the cases and noted that there is no evidence the variant causes more severe disease.

The arrival of the South African variant follows predictions by the CDC this month that a more-transmissible U.K. variant could become the dominant strain in the United States by March.

CDC has said the arrival of more transmissible coronavirus variants emphasizes the need for rapid rollout of the vaccine to limit the ability of the virus to continue mutating.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; additional reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bangalore; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

South African virus variant may resist antibody drugs; Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine seems to work vs UK variant

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.

South African variant may resist current antibody treatments

The variant of the new coronavirus identified in South Africa can resist, or “escape,” antibodies that neutralize earlier versions of the virus, scientists have found. It “exhibits complete escape” from three classes of monoclonal antibodies manufactured for treating COVID-19 patients, and it shows “substantial or complete” resistance to neutralizing antibodies in blood donated by COVID-19 survivors, the scientists reported on Tuesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. Similarities between the South Africa variant and another variant identified in Brazil suggest the Brazilian variant will show similar resistance, they added. Liam Smeeth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the study, noted that these were laboratory tests, and it would be unwise to extrapolate the findings to humans at this point. “The data do raise the possibility that the protection gained from past infection with COVID-19 may be lower for re-infection with the South African variant,” he said. “The data also suggest that the existing vaccines could be less effective against the South African variant.” He called for large studies among populations where the variant is common.

Pfizer/BioNTech shot likely protects against UK variant

The COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE is likely to protect against the more infectious variant of the virus discovered in Britain and now spreading around the world, according to laboratory tests. Researchers took blood samples from 16 people who had received the vaccine and exposed the blood to a synthetic virus, or pseudovirus, that was engineered to have 10 mutations found in the UK variant. The antibodies that had developed in response to the vaccine effectively neutralized the pseudovirus, according to a report posted on Tuesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. “This makes it very unlikely that the UK variant will escape from the protection provided by the vaccine,” said Jonathan Stoye, a virus scientist at Britain’s Francis Crick Institute who was not involved in the research. Similar experiments are needed with the more concerning variant first found in South Africa, he suggested. AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc and CureVac NV are also testing whether their respective vaccines will protect against the fast-spreading variants.

Immune system will remember how to make COVID-19 antibodies

People who have recovered from COVID-19 can likely mount a fast and effective response to the virus if they encounter it again because their immune system’s “B cells” will remember how to make the antibodies needed to fight it, a new study shows. Researchers tracked 87 COVID-19 survivors for six months and found that while levels of antibodies to the virus may decline over time, the number of memory B cells remains unchanged. The antibodies produced by these cells are more potent than the patients’ original antibodies and may be more resistant to mutations in the spike protein the virus uses to break into cells, they said. For example, they found, the antibodies could recognize and neutralize at least one of the mutations in the South African variant of the virus that has caused concern among health experts. Even if antibody levels fall, B cells will remember how to make them when necessary, according to study leader Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University, whose findings were reported on Monday in Nature. If this is true at six months, as in this study, it is safe to assume it is probably still true for longer periods, he added. People who have recovered from COVID-19 “may become infected but the immune system will be prepped to fight off the infection,” Nussenzweig said.

Mortality higher when ICUs are packed with COVID-19 patients

The more full an intensive care unit (ICU) is with COVID-19 patients, the higher the mortality rate among those patients, new data suggest. When researchers tracked outcomes of 8,515 COVID-19 patients admitted to 88 U.S. Veterans Affairs hospitals in 2020, they found that survival rates improved between March and August. Throughout the study period, however, the risk of death was nearly double when at least 75% of ICU beds were filled with COVID-19 patients, compared to when they accounted for no more than 25% of ICU beds. COVID-19 mortality “increases during periods of peak demand,” said Dr. Dawn Bravata of the Richard L Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis who co-led the study published on Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. “The more the public can do to avoid infections, the better,” she added. In addition, Bravata said, “facilities within a healthcare system or within a geographic region should collaborate to triage critically ill patients with COVID-19 to sites with greater ICU capacity to reduce strain on any one facility.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Linda Carroll, Kate Kelland and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

South African variant unlikely to ‘completely negate’ COVID vaccines, scientist says

By Alexander Winning

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A variant of the coronavirus first detected in South Africa is unlikely to completely negate the immunizing effects of vaccines, a researcher studying it told Reuters.

British scientists expressed concern on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines may not be able to protect against the variant identified by South African genomics scientists and which has spread internationally.

Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, which played a central role in identifying the variant known as 501Y.V2, said his understanding was that the comments were not based on any new data but on shared information.

“They are voicing the same concerns that we articulated when we first released this information, that the pattern of mutations did give us concern,” Lessells said on Tuesday.

South African researchers are studying the effects of mutations in the variant, including whether natural immunity from exposure to older variants provides protection against reinfection by the new variant.

Preliminary results from those studies may be ready by the end of this week, Lessells said.

Scientists have identified more than 20 mutations in the 501Y.V2 variant, including several in the spike protein the virus uses to infect human cells.

One of these is at a site that is believed to be important for neutralizing antibodies and is not found in another coronavirus variant discovered in Britain, Lessells said.

“Why we’ve been a bit cautious about flagging out the concern about the (effectiveness of) vaccines is that for many of the vaccines they are thought to induce quite a broad immune response,” he said.

That broad response could target different parts of the spike protein, not just one, he added.

“That’s why we think that although these mutations may have some effect, they are very unlikely to completely negate the effect of the vaccines,” Lessells said.

South Africa’s health ministry acknowledged questions from Reuters but did not give an immediate response. The country has recorded more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and in excess of 30,000 deaths, the most on the African continent.

Public Health England has said there is no evidence to suggest COVID-19 vaccines would not protect against mutated coronavirus variants.

BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin said in an interview last week that his company’s vaccine, which uses messenger RNA to instruct the human immune system to fight the virus, should be able to protect against the British variant.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Joe Bavier and Alexander Smith)