BioNTech chief ‘confident’ Pfizer vaccine works against Indian virus strain
Ugur Sahin, co-founder of company that jointly developed leading COVID-19 inoculation, says shots have proved effective against other similar mutations
“We are still testing the Indian variant, but the Indian variant has mutations that we have already tested for and which our vaccine works against, so I am confident,” said Sahin.
“The vaccine is cleverly built and I’m convinced the bulwark will hold. And if we have to strengthen the bulwark again, then we will do it, that I’m not worried about,” he added.
Pfizer CEO optimistic about vaccine 'controlling' Indian variant
Bourla said Pfizer had access to large amounts of data about new COVID-19 variants. "We have already data for the UK one—I hate using the [names of] countries, but people know them like that—which is very prominent in Israel... efficiency was 97 per cent... We have data from South Africa, with the South African variant, and overall the efficacy was 100 per cent. And also have data from Brazil. And it looks also this is very well controlled," Bourla told AFP.
Pfizer has not compiled sufficient data on the efficiency of its vaccine against the Indian variant. However, Bourla told AFP Pfizer's mRNA technology, used in the vaccine, can be adapted to counter new mutations.
"The thing that makes me feel more comfortable is that we have developed a process that once a variant becomes a variant of concern, we should be able to have a new vaccine within 100 days. It's a tough target, but I am very comfortable that we should be able to do it. And because of the effectiveness of this mRNA technology, I believe that variants will not become an issue; we'll be able to control them," Bourla told AFP.
Earlier this week, an Israeli official said the Pfizer vaccine had a degree of efficiency against the double mutant COVID-19 version from India.
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