SA variant antibodies may offer cross-protection: Study

Johannesburg: Research by South African scientists suggests that antibodies triggered by exposure to the country’s dominant Covid variant can prevent infection by other variants, the scientists said on Wednesday. The findings in lab studies offer hope that vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year could protect against multiple variants circulating in different parts of the world.

“We used plasma ... from people that were infected in this latest wave with 501Y.V2 and we used it against the first-wave virus, ... what we found is that it could neutralise, OK not as well as it could neutralise itself but it’s not bad at all,” Alex Sigal from the Africa Health Research Institute said. Sigal said vaccines designed with the 501Y.V2 variant in mind “might be cross-protective to other variants.”

Penny Moore of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said the antibody response from SA variant was only reduced threefold against the first-wave virus, whereas response from first-wave virus was reduced nine-fold against 501Y.V2.