We're hearing about variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
How concerned should we be?
And do vaccines provide protection against these variants?
Welcome to Science in 5.
I'm Vismita Gupta-Smith and this is WHO’s conversations in science.
Answering these questions today will be WHO’s chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan.
Welcome, Soumya.
Hello Vismita, nice to be back with you again on Science in 5.
Soumya, tell us what we know about these variants.
How concerned should we be?
And is it unusual for viruses to change?
From the beginning of the year, we've been tracking this virus and we know that it's
gone through a lot of changes and there've been variants before.
Now this particular time there have been two particular variants that have been reported
to WHO.
One was identified in the UK and one was identified in South Africa.
They do have one change in common, we call it the N501Y mutation.
But otherwise the two are different.
And the reason there's concern is that both of these variants were associated with an
increase in the number of cases in both of these countries.
And scientists have now studied this and have found that these variants do tend to spread
faster, they're more transmissible or more infectious.
So that's the worrying part.
However, so far, they do not seem to cause more severe illness or a higher death rate
or any sort of different clinical manifestations.
They seem to behave pretty much as the previous viruses were behaving and cause a pretty similar
kind of disease.
Soumya, a number of countries are rolling out vaccines as we speak.
Do these vaccines protect us from these variants?
And is this something that is kept in mind when vaccines are being manufactured?
Yes, this is a very important point that vaccine developers keep in mind.
And as you know, we have some vaccines, like measles, which you don't need to change at
all.
You make the vaccine, it works pretty much all the time.
But you also have vaccines like against the influenza virus, where you have to change
the structure of the vaccine every year, based on the circulating strains and WHO coordinates
this global network that actually identifies which strain should be used every year.
Now for SARS-CoV-2 we're still learning, we're still observing and our knowledge is evolving.
But at this point in time, most scientists believe that the vaccines that are currently
in development and a couple that have been approved should provide protection against
this variant and other variants because these vaccines elicit a fairly broad immune response,
a host of antibodies and cell-mediated immune responses.
And so a couple of changes or mutations in the virus should not make these vaccines ineffective.
But right now there are studies going on in labs around the world to actually confirm
that.
And in the small possibility that perhaps these are less effective against one or both
of these variants, nowadays the way vaccines are developed, it will be possible actually
to also change the composition of the antigens and the vaccines quite quickly.
Soumya, in this pandemic the world is in this situation where new evidence comes in almost
every day and we're learning new things.
But at the same time, we have to act in real time to protect ourselves.
So tell us how in this new scenario with the new variants, how can people protect themselves
and what should governments be doing?
So what we know about this variant and previous variants is that the virus is still behaving
in the same way, it's spreading in the same way.
And the more we give it a chance to spread and to multiply within humans, the more chances
it's going to have to keep changing itself, that’s its natural property.
So we really need to go and focus now and attack it and make sure that we're doing everything
we can do to reduce transmission.
And we know the things that work.
We know that testing, that identifying those who are infectious, that being able to provide
them supportive isolation, tracking and contact tracing, and quarantining all the contacts,
making sure that people continue to comply with the physical distancing, with wearing
a mask with avoiding crowded places, avoiding closed settings, where there are a lot of
people, washing hands, respiratory etiquette, staying home if you're sick.
All of these things together definitely make a difference in bringing down transmission.
That's been shown again and again in country after country.
So I think at this time we need to double down because we know the same public health
and social measures will work against these variants, as have worked in the past.
And right now we're at a very critical stage in many parts of the world, where we really
need to be focusing on bringing down the transmission and that in turn will help in reducing how
much this virus can actually change.
Thank you Soumya.
There you have it, WHO’s chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan talking about variants
and vaccines.
Until next time then.
Stay safe, stay healthy and stick with science.