The coronavirus will become resistant to vaccines if, during the mutation of the infection, a strain appears in which the protein is radically rearranged. Such a mechanism was described by Alexei Agranovsky, professor of the Department of Virology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, on the air of the NSN.
According to him, the likelihood of the appearance of such a variant of the coronavirus is very small. “Certain strains are actually worse at neutralizing the antibodies that appear in response to vaccines. But this does not mean that they are not neutralized at all, ”the virologist assured.
Mutations in new strains of the virus are, as a rule, point-like: they change one amino acid in the protein. In this regard, he stressed that vaccines remain effective against existing infection options. “So this South African strain will fight with the vaccines we have now,” he added.
At the same time, the Russian vaccine developed by the Chumakov Center will show the best result in the fight against new strains of the virus. “She is an inactivated virus. Therefore, antibodies will be formed there not only to the thorn protein, but also to the nucleoprotein protein. There is a rather complexly arranged virion – an even wider range of antibodies will be formed on it, ”Agranovsky explained. He such a vaccine will not leave any strain, he concluded.
At the same time, any vaccine can be vaccinated, since all drugs work to create herd immunity and reduce the likelihood of new variants of the coronavirus.
In February, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the coronavirus strain found in South Africa is more infectious than the regular SARS-CoV-2 variant. The South African variant of the virus, like the British strain, is capable of infecting more people. However, the difference in the severity of the disease and the number of hospitalizations is not visible. Speaking about the effectiveness of vaccines against new strains, the WHO stressed that research is currently being carried out on this score.
Since the beginning of December, it has become known about the emergence of new mutated strains of SARS-CoV-2 from the UK, South Africa and Brazil. These variants of the virus spread more easily, which can lead to an increase in the number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations.
source https://pledgetimes.com/virologist-described-the-features-of-a-vaccine-resistant-strain-of-coronavirus/
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