Study shows that Pfizer and Moderna could be far less effective against the South Africa's variant
Pfizer's and Moderna's shots were at least 10 times less effective against variant in a new study.
Researchers tested the vaccines on a variant first found in South Africa, which is now in 20 states.
A mutation on the variant called E484K appeared to be a "major contributor," the study authors said.
COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech appear significantly less effective against the coronavirus variant first found in South Africa, a lab study has suggested.
The percentage of protective antibodies that neutralized the variant - called B.1.351, which has been recorded in 20 US states - was 12.4 fold lower for Moderna's COVID-19 shot than against the original coronavirus, and 10.3 fold lower for Pfizer's.
This was a bigger drop than in previous lab studies testing the vaccines against manufactured forms of the variant, they said. For this study, the researchers used real forms of the variant taken.
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