HYDERABAD: A day after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) announced that Covaxin fights the so-called double mutant, B.1.617, city-based
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) on Thursday said
Covishield vaccine, too, protects people from the new mutant.
The ‘double mutant’ is said to be responsible for the sudden spike in cases in
Maharashtra and other parts of the country. Scientists earlier feared that this double mutant or B.1.617 may escape the immune system and thus,
vaccines may not offer protection from this strain of novel coronavirus. However, studies by ICMR on Covaxin found that it offers protection from the new mutant.
And now CCMB scientists say Covishield, too, has the potential to fight against the ‘double mutant’. India has Covaxin and Covishield under its vaccination programme and has given emergency use authorisation to Russian vaccine Sputnik V. The double mutant has emerged as a variant of concern (VoC) and it has spread outside the borders to the UK.
“Covishield protects against B.1.617. Early results using in vitro neutralization assay show that both convalescent (
prior infection) sera and Covishield vaccinated sera offer protection against the B.1.617 variant, aka double mutant,” said CCMB director
Rakesh Kumar Mishra. He, however, added in his tweet that it is very5 preliminary but encouraging result.
Double mutant is a misnomer as this variant carries not double or two mutation but as many as 15 mutations, say experts. It has been found in 60 to 70% cases in Maharashtra, but less than 5% cases in Telangana and AP. Another new mutant from Bengal, B.1.618, is under study. CCMB scientist Divya Tej Sowpati tweeted the latest research study gives “all the more reason to get vaccinated”. He said convalescent sera is from September 2020 and hence most likely of an infection of a variant, which is not B.1.617. He also said if anyone has access to Pfizer/Moderna vaccinated sera, they may get in touch with the CCMB team for testing neutralization potential against new variant.