People wear face masks amid the Omicron wave in Singapore (Credit: REUTERS/Caroline Chia)
By Nancy Lapid
NEW YORK (Reuters) People infected with the first version of the Ômicron variant of the coronavirus, first identified in South Africa in November, may be susceptible to reinfection with later versions of Ômicron even if they have been vaccinated and boosted have received. according to a report new search.
Patients vaccinated with Omicron BA.1 infections have developed antibodies capable of neutralizing this virus and the original SARSCoV2 virus, but the Omicron strains currently circulating have mutations that allow them to neutralize this to evade antibodies, researchers in China said on Friday. in the journal Nature.
Omicron BA.2.12.1, which currently causes most infections in the United States, and Omicron BA.5 and BA.4, which now account for more than 21% of new cases in the United States, contain mutations not present in BA .1 and BA.2 versions by Ômicron.
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These newer sublineages “escape the neutralizing antibodies induced by SARSCoV2 infection and vaccination,” the researchers found using testtube experiments.
According to the experiments, monoclonal antibody drugs such as Eli Lilly’s bebtelovimab and cilgavimab, a component of AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, can still effectively neutralize variants BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5.
But booster vaccines based on the BA.1 virus, such as those being developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, “may not achieve broadspectrum protection against new variants of Omicron,” the researchers warned.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid)
