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Existing vaccines could protect against the UK’s new virus strain

Existing vaccines could protect against the UK’s new virus strain

Mubasher: Existing vaccines for COVID-19 will be effective in fighting off infection from new strains of the coronavirus, CNBC reported on Monday citing multiple experts.

The comments came after the UK on Saturday said it identified a new mutation of the virus that can spread more quickly than previous variants.

“There is a strong belief here that the vaccine, as it exists today … will have effectiveness in warding off infection from this new strain in England, in addition to the old strain that we have been contending with for months now,” said an affiliate assistant professor from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Vin Gupta.

This comes as, at the genetic level, the new strain is likely to be very similar to prior strains, he added.

Vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have reported efficacy rates of over 90%. The UK was the first country in the world to authorise and roll out the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency use.

“The effectiveness of these vaccines in producing antibodies that can really attack and kill Covid-19 is extraordinary,” he said. “I don’t expect these minor changes at the genetic level … to affect the vaccines’ performance in the near term.”

However, future versions of the vaccine may need to take new virus strains into account, the same way flu vaccines are updated, Gupta noted.

“There is no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against [the new UK strain] as well,” Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has been tapped by President-elect Joe Biden to be the next US Surgeon General, said, adding that there is no evidence of the new variant being more deadly.