Emergence of variants of concern (VOCs) may potentially impact efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the ongoing continuation of the global vaccine rollout.
The clinical efficacy of several vaccines in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19, especially in light of the circulating variants, has been an emerging research topic.
Long-term data have emerged regarding the durability of antibody responses in people who had COVID-19. In a recent Nature article, a team lead by Rockefeller University researcher Dr. Michel Nussenzweig reported immunity results from 63 people recovering from severe COVID-19 (convalescent individuals) up to 12 months post-infection.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently announced a new naming system for coronavirus variants using Greek alphabet letters.
Researchers from Public Health England looked at the vaccine effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines against the COVID-19 variants originating in the UK and India.
The Indian subcontinent is reeling from an unprecedented second wave of COVID-19 infections since March 2021. The country is facing an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths, and this is related to the emergence of a new variant, B.1.617, that was initially described in the state of Maharashtra.
A randomized control trial in South Africa, the results of which have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, although safe, is not effective against the B.1.351 variant, also known as the South African variant.
The original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2 has been evolving constantly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Researchers in Brazil repeatedly measured antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in blood donors, and found that in the Amazon, close to half of donors were positive for antibodies.
Viruses mutate naturally as they replicate. Generally, most mutations are not a serious concern for human health or public health strategies.