Covid-19 vaccines currently being used in United States are effective against the deadly Covid-19 variant first detected in India, top US health officials said on Tuesday The B.1.617 virus variant, first identified in India last year, has been classified as a ”variant of concern” at the global level by the World Health Organisation.
Addressing a news conference, US top pandemic expert Dr Anthony Fauci said, “The modest neutralization resistance to the 617 antibodies suggests that the current vaccines that we are all using that we’ve been speaking about would be at least partially and probably quite protective,”
Making a presentation of his data and latest research on this issue, Dr Fauci said that both the variants B617 and B1618, that have been identified in India, have been neutralized with only a 2.5 fold diminution in titer. “That’s well within the cushion effect of the capability to protect against infection and certainly against serious disease”.
“So, in summary, this is just another example of the scientific data accruing, literally over the last few days, indicating another very strong reason why we should be getting vaccinated,” Dr Fauci said.
“The spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617 and B.1.618 variants identified in India provide partial resistance to vaccine-elicited and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies,” according to the slide shared by the White House Covid-19 response team as Fauci spoke. The United States is using vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both based on mRNA technology.
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Andy Slavitt, White House COVID-19 Senior Advisor said the vaccines that are available in the US are effective against the Indian variant.
“And it is all the more reason why it’s important for all of us, who have the opportunity to get vaccinated, to do so because we’ve seen the devastation that these variants can cause in other countries. And we should not feel that this can’t happen here,” Slavitt said in response to a question.
