Mutation-beating Covid vaccine in six weeks

The co-founder of BioNTech said yesterday it was "highly likely" that its vaccine against the coronavirus works against the mutated strain detected in Britain, but it could also adapt the vaccine if necessary in six weeks.

"Scientifically, it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus variant," said Ugur Sahin.

But if needed, "in principle the beauty of the messenger technology is that we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation -- we could be able to provide a new vaccine technically within six weeks."

Sahin said the variant detected in Britain has nine mutations, rather than just one as is usually common.

Nevertheless, he voiced confidence that the vaccine developed with Pfizer would be efficient because it "contains more than 1,000 amino acids, and only nine of them have changed, so that means 99 percent of the protein is still the same".

He said tests are being run on the variant, with results expected in two weeks.

"We have scientific confidence that the vaccine might protect but we will only know it if the experiment is done... we will publish the data as soon as possible," he added.

Meanwhile, Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd's Covid-19 vaccine has shown to be effective in late-stage trials in Brazil, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people involved in the vaccine's development.

Sao Paulo state's Butantan Institute, which is organizing the late-stage trials of Sinovac's vaccine CoronaVac in Brazil, said on Monday that any reports on the efficacy of the shot before today's announcement were "mere speculation."

Brazil is the first country to complete late-stage trials of CoronaVac, which is also being tested in Indonesia and Turkey, the Journal reported.

The results from the Brazil trials put CoronaVac above the 50% threshold that international scientists deem necessary to protect people, the report said.

Butantan is poised today to announce CoronaVac's efficacy rate, according to the Journal.

Sinovac did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Sinovac and AstraZeneca Plc's vaccine candidates may be ready for use in Brazil by mid-February, the country's health minister said last week.