Vaccine developers respond to remarks regarding their vaccines’ effectiveness against the new strain of Covid

Several vaccine developers have responded to remarks regarding their vaccines’ effectiveness against the new strain of COVID-19. Ugur Sahin, BioNTech Chief Executive Officer, whose Pfizer partnered vaccine has been approved in the UK, US and EU, believes the vaccine will continue to work against the new strain.

Sahin outlined that if the vaccine doesn’t work against the new strain, it could be modified by updating small sections of the messenger RNA used within the vaccine.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has highlighted that its COVID-19 vaccine, AZD1222, should be effective against the new strain.

Sahin stated: “The beauty of the messenger RNA technology is that we can directly start to engineer a vaccine – which completely mimics this new mutation.”

An AstraZeneca representative stated: “AZD1222 contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein and the changes to the genetic code seen in this new viral strain do not appear to change the structure of the spike protein. Through vaccination with AZD1222, the body’s immune system is trained to recognise many different parts of the spike protein, so that it can eliminate the virus if it is later exposed.”