Tweet
10/28/21 AT 7:25 AM EDT
BY ED BROWNE
A team of scientists in Germany has warned that an old COVID variant called A.30 has resistance to the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID vaccines.
However, the variant has not been detected for months, with the last A.30 samples reported between May and June this year.
According to the COVID variant tracking network GISAID, only five cases of A.30 have been reported worldwide—three in Angola, one in Sweden, and one in the U.K.
... Regardless, the scientists in Germany said that a future potential spread of the variant "warrants close monitoring and rapid installment of countermeasures" in a study published in the journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology on October 25.
The study notes that A.30 has several mutations to its spike protein, which the virus uses to latch onto human cells, compared to the B.1 variant that circulated in the pandemic's early phase.
... Responding to assertions that A.30 has already gone extinct, he added: "Lack of proper surveillance capacities in many African countries may leave the chance that A.30 is spreading locally and only occasionally detected when infected travelers are tested in countries with sufficient testing capacities."
BY ED BROWNE
A team of scientists in Germany has warned that an old COVID variant called A.30 has resistance to the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID vaccines.
However, the variant has not been detected for months, with the last A.30 samples reported between May and June this year.
According to the COVID variant tracking network GISAID, only five cases of A.30 have been reported worldwide—three in Angola, one in Sweden, and one in the U.K.
... Regardless, the scientists in Germany said that a future potential spread of the variant "warrants close monitoring and rapid installment of countermeasures" in a study published in the journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology on October 25.
The study notes that A.30 has several mutations to its spike protein, which the virus uses to latch onto human cells, compared to the B.1 variant that circulated in the pandemic's early phase.
... Responding to assertions that A.30 has already gone extinct, he added: "Lack of proper surveillance capacities in many African countries may leave the chance that A.30 is spreading locally and only occasionally detected when infected travelers are tested in countries with sufficient testing capacities."