Covid-19: Vaccine efficacy issue may dent fight against variants

Will vaccines work on the new novel Coronavirus variants Kappa and Lambda Health experts have raised concerns about the efficacy of vaccines against the variants and a few feel that there is a need to intensify testing and modify vaccines accordingly The unvaccinated may be at risk of getting infected fastermidday reported on the steps to take against the new variants in its July 21 editionldquoThe efficacy of any vaccine will need monitoring and modifications within a short time based on the variantsrdquo said Subhash Hira professor of Global Health University of WashingtonSeattle Kappa and Lambda are currently Variants of InterestldquoAs per studies Kappa and Lambda are considered to be more transmissible can cause more severe disease and decrease vaccine effectivenessrdquo said Dr HiraldquoThe emergence of newer mutant strains is a serious cause for concern Researchers need to find out their source Genomic study of strains is essential to identify variantsrdquo said Dr Ketan Vagholkar professor of surgery at D Y Patil Medical CollegeDr Wiqar Shaikh professor of Medicine Grant Medical College and Sir JJ Group of Hospitals said that only herd immunity achieved naturally or through vaccines can end the pandemic He said that the current Covid19 vaccines have been found to be effective against the original Covid19 virus But that may not be the case against its variantsAlso read Covid19 After a dayrsquos dip Mumbairsquos new cases rise above 400 againDr Shaikh cited comments by the USrsquos Centre for Disease Control CDC an article in the American journal JAMA and opinions of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the USA mdash which pointed towards lesser efficacy of vaccines against Covid19 variantsAlarming studiesDr Shaikh is alarmed by a February 17 study in the New England Journal of Medicine NEJM from South Africa in which two doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine against the Beta variant were found to have twothirds less efficacy than against the original Covid virus A May 20 study in the journal Dr Shaikh said is even more shocking mdash in South Africa the efficacy of the OxfordAstraZeneca vaccine against the Beta variant was only 104 per cent A February 12 study from South Africa in the journal medRxiv claimed that the OxfordAstraZeneca vaccine did not protect against the Beta variantA June 30 study in Forbes collected data from Lancet NEJM and Public Health England PHE regarding the efficacy of PfizerBioNTech Moderna Johnson and Johnson and OxfordAstraZeneca vaccines It found that all showed less effectiveness against variants He added that a similar problem has been found in the ldquomonoclonal antibody cocktailrdquo currently being used against Covid There are several such cocktails available in the marketHe quoted JAMA which said that ldquothe challenge for the world when modifying a vaccine is which variant to pick and how often does it mutaterdquo JAMA also said that ldquothe need to deploy modified vaccines targeting new variants will complicate an already rocky rollout of Covid19 vaccinesrdquoDr Shaikh is worried that Covid19 vaccines may end up as annual jabs around the world and added that Pfizer has already announced that the efficacy of its vaccine will not last more than six months and that booster doses will definitely be required