A laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has stated the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE was able to neutralize a new variant of the coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly in Brazil. According to a report with Reuters, blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine neutralized an engineered version of the virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious P.1 variant first identified in Brazil, the study conducted by scientists from the companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch found.
The neutralising ability was roughly equivalent to the vaccine's effect on a previous less contagious version of the virus from last year.
Meanwhile, according to some previously published studies, Pfizer had found that its vaccine neutralized other more contagious variants first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa, although the South African variant may reduce protective antibodies elicited by the vaccine.
Pfizer has said it believes its current vaccine is highly likely to still protect against the South African variant.
However, the drugmaker is planning to test a third booster dose of their vaccine as well as a version retooled specifically to combat the variant in order to better understand the immune response.
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