Scientists fear COVID-19 UK variant has mutated again

Apprehend that mutation could evade immune system

Scientists fear COVID-19 UK variant has mutated again

People get off the bus on Ealing's high street where the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variant

originating from South Africa has been located, in West London. Reuters file

The highly transmissible and possibly deadlier variant of COVID-19 detected in southern

England at the end of last year is showing signs of further mutation, UK scientists warned on

Tuesday.

Tests conducted on samples of the Kent variant, named after the region in England where it

was first detected, show a mutation, called ‘E484K’, already detected in the South Africa and

Brazil variants.

There are fears that this mutation could evade the immune system and that the vaccines

currently being administered may prove less effective against these further mutating variants

of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The findings form part of yet-to-be peer-reviewed results of research at the Cambridge Institute

of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID), University of Cambridge, in

collaboration with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) COVID-19 BioResource.

“Of particular concern, though, is the emergence of the E484K mutation, which so far has only

been seen in a relatively small number of individuals. Our work suggests the vaccine is likely

to be less effective when dealing with this (E484K) mutation,” said Professor Ravi Gupta, the

lead researcher at the CITIID.

He said that the variant is expected to continue to acquire mutations seen in the other variants

of concern.

“So we need to plan for the next generation of vaccines to have modifications to account for

new variants. We also need to scale up vaccines as fast and as broadly as possible to get

transmission down globally,” he said.

The data, which relates to a small sample of patients, also suggests that a significant proportion

of over-80 olds may not be sufficiently protected against infection until they have received

their second dose of the vaccine.

“Our data suggest that a significant proportion of people aged over 80 may not have developed

protective neutralising antibodies against infection three weeks after their first dose of the

vaccine. But it’s reassuring to see that after two doses, serum from every individual was able

to neutralise the virus,” said Dr Dami Collier, the main co-investigator on the studies.

The scientists used blood samples from 26 individuals who had received their first dose of the

Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine three weeks previously, to extract serum, which contains antibodies

raised in response to the vaccine. The age range of the volunteers was 29 to 89 years.

The findings come as the UK is conducting urgent door-to-door surge testing in south-east

England to try and trace every case of the South African variant of COVID-19, which was

detected in two people within the community with no travel history connecting them to South

Africa.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he wanted to “come down hard” on the variant by

“finding every case”. PTI AK According to Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, over

106,774 people have died and more than 3.8 million people have contracted the disease in the

UK. 

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