The German-American vaccine would be less effective against the South African variant of SARS-CoV-2 according to an Israeli study unveiled this Saturday, April 10.
According to the High Authority for Health (HAS) “The variants detected in South Africa and Brazil, although very few in France, have had a significant presence in a limited number of territories for several weeks”, HAS said. In certain territories such as Guyana, Réunion or Mayotte, the variant shows a rate of 40 to 48% of cases. In France and Moselle precisely, the proportion stands at 35% of cases. The High Authority points out that the proportion of the South African variant, however, remains below 20% in the rest of the national territory. Faced with a dangerous and contagious variant, researchers around the world are naturally studying the protections offered by vaccines available today. Bad news, Israeli scientists said through a study published this Saturday, April 10, that the South African variant would be able to “Perforate“The defenses granted by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
A variant capable of passing through the defenses of vaccinated people
A team from Tel Aviv and Clalit University sequenced the swabs of 150 Israelis who tested positive for Covid-19 despite having been vaccinated. “the prevalence rate (of the South African variant) was eight times higher than in unvaccinated people” specifies the authors of the study. This means that “the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine, although extremely protective, probably does not offer the same level of protection against the South African variant of the coronavirus as against other forms of the virus”. Despite a relatively low number of infections, the results affirm that this Brazilian variant is much more successful than other strains in breaking through the defenses of vaccinated people. “Based on the trends observed in the general population, we would have expected a single case of the South African variant, but we saw eight.“, lamented at The Times of Israel Professor Adi Stern, who led the research. “Obviously, this result did not make me happy”.
A study that deserves to be deepened
Two studies published in February in the New England Journal of Medicine, conducted by pharmaceutical companies using messenger RNA technology (Pfizer / BioNTech-Moderna), revealed the presence of antibodies after previous vaccination in individuals infected with South African strain. Results which already demonstrate reduced protection of the serum. This new Israeli study is the first to characterize the potency of this variant, capable of escaping the protections of vaccines “The vaccine can be said to be less effective, but more research is needed to determine how much”, advocates Adi Stern.
