Milan, March 29 (beraking latest news Salute) – Good news from Italian research on the efficacy of anti-Covid vaccines against Sars-CoV-2 mutants: “All variants are neutralized by the antibodies developed by those who received the shield injection. as regards the English and Nigerian variants, the neutralization is even more powerful than on the original pandemic virus “. This was announced by Arnaldo Caruso, president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv), who anticipates to beraking latest news Salute the results obtained by ‘testing’ the antibodies produced by health professionals protected with two doses of Pfizer’s mRna vaccine against a broad spectrum of variants of coronavirus: the English one, the South African, the Brazilian, the Nigerian and also the so-called ‘Italian variant’, discovered in Brescia at the end of 2020.
“After receiving the first dose and the recall of Pfizer vaccine, some volunteer health workers donated blood for this analysis – reports the expert, professor of microbiology and clinical microbiology of the Brescia university and director of the Asst Spedali microbiology laboratory. Civilians – In this way we were able to observe that the antibodies developed following vaccination were able to neutralize not only the original pandemic virus, but also all the variants currently circulating “. Including Nigerian: a rare variant which, presenting different mutation points on the Spike protein, target of vaccines, initially aroused particular concern for its possible resistance.
Now the good news: even the African mutant is neutralized by the antibodies of the vaccinated. Indeed, apparently, “to an even greater extent, as well as the English variant, compared to the Wuhan virus. It means that no variant is currently worrying for those who get vaccinated”, assures Caruso. It is in fact “conceivable”, although “to prove”, that the results emerging from the Brescia studies may also apply to other anti-Covid vaccines currently available.
“Except for the Brazilian variant, of which I got the isolate from my colleague from Varese Fabrizio Maggi – specifies the president of the Italian virologists – all the other” subject of the analyzes carried out “were isolated in Brescia and were therefore in our possession: the English one , which is now prevalent in Italy and in Lombardy has reached percentages of 90%; the South African and Nigerian ones, currently very little widespread on the national territory; the Italian one “, which has characteristics very similar to English and which according to what is reported in December from Caruso would circulate in Italy from early August.
“At the moment – the specialist points out – the observation of this mutant is limited to the only patient in which we found it in Brescia. We have not yet searched for it systematically. But since, according to what we have seen with in vitro experiments, it presents a mutation that could be easily induced by treatments with monoclonal antibodies, the good news from our study is that, should it appear following these therapies, at least in the vaccinated it should not produce problems “.
In fact, Caruso reiterates, “in the neutralization tests conducted we were able to see that all the variants are neutralized by the patient sera: if the English and the Nigerian are even more powerful than the original strain, with the South African, the Brazilian and Italian, there is a slight reduction in the neutralization of vaccinated antibodies by the antibodies, but the neutralizing power remains robust “.
The fact that the anti-Covid vaccines seem to work, albeit to a different extent, against the Sars-CoV-2 mutants circulating today “is not surprising” the president Siv-Isv. “These variants – explains Caruso – were generated spontaneously” when there were still no vaccines or anti-Covid monoclonal antibodies available on a large scale.
“The virus, in the absence of any” pharmacological obstacle, “thus ran freewheeling, managing to replicate and adapt better to man. The mutations it encountered – the expert reasons – were dictated by the need for achieve this goal, precisely that of replicating better and adapting better to the host. Sars-CoV-2 did not yet need to escape the immune defenses induced by vaccines, or antibodies delivered as drugs. Therefore, in a certain sense it was obvious that these mutations were not important for the antibody neutralization of the vaccinated “.
“It is now, with the availability of monoclonals and vaccines, that it will be necessary to understand how the virus will react when it finds itself under pressure”. In the meantime, however, “the message must be positive: everyone must get vaccinated without hesitation – exhorts Caruso – because finally the circulating variants must no longer be scary. Not even the Nigerian”.