Pharmaceutical Companies Testing Vaccine Effectiveness Against New Coronavirus Strain

Pfizer and Moderna both report they are testing their coronavirus vaccines to determine if they are effective against the newest strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to CNN.

Although the new variant of the virus has not been identified in the United States yet, it could already be in the country without having been detected. Travel between the U.S. and United Kingdom—where the new strain was found—along with the high prevalence of the variant in UK infections increases the likelihood of importation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The novel coronavirus has mutated before, and both companies’ vaccines worked against other variations of the virus. Although Moderna expects that its vaccine-induced immunity would be protective against the variants recently described in the U.K., its researchers will still be performing additional tests in the next few weeks.

Ugur Sahin, the CEO of BioNTech, which collaborated with Pfizer on its vaccine, said the company has “scientific confidence” its vaccine will work against the variant, but full data won’t be available for two weeks.

The variant has nine mutations but shares all but nine of 1,270 amino acids with the previous version, so the protein remains effectively the same. Sahin said BioNTech could develop a vaccine against a new variant in six weeks using technology that allows researchers to “engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation.”

Since US vaccinations began last week, more than 4.6 million doses have been delivered, and about 614,000 have been administered, according to the CDC.

Learn more about the coronavirus mutation in the latest StraightTalk! episode.