Anti-COVID vaccines could become annual affair: study

Preventive vaccination for COVID19 SARSCoV2 will become a yearly affair a research study by a group of Indian scientists recently published in a Swiss medical journal has claimed Scientists used a computer simulation model to map the British South African and Brazilian mutants and predicted the direction of future mutations The mutations are likely to make basic diagnostic tests fail build resistance against antivirals and will require annual vaccine shots The Infectious Diseases model is a triangle of three elements host virus environmentHealth and frontline workers get vaccinated at Nair Hospital on Friday PicAshish RajeThe research study was conducted by a group of scientists from various institutions such as JHInstitute of Molecular Medicine Jamia Hamdard New Delhi ICMR National Institute of Pathology New Delhi Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology IIT New Delhi Department of Global Health University of Seattle USA among others The research study was submitted in January and published on March 9 under the title lsquoStructure Function Analyses of New SARSCoV2 variants B117 UK B1351 South African and B11281P1 Brazilian Clinical Diagnostic Therapeutic and Public Health Implicationsrsquo in the medical journal lsquoVirusesrsquo published by MDPI MultiDisciplinary Publishing Institute in Basel SwitzerlandThe simulation modelldquoIndia hasnrsquot published any scientific publication yet on variants of SARSCoV2 in national or international journals and therefore our findings will be of utmost importance for the scientific community at global level Moreover our findings of the three variants show that the mutant virus will continue to stay with us for a longer period and it will be a challenging situation that India might encounter with increase in number of cases caused by these variants and hence following the basic ndash covering mouth social distancing and hand sanitizing should continue to be a part of our daytoday life for many years to comerdquo said Dr Shubhash Hira one of the coauthors and Professor of Global Health at the University of WashingtonSeattle and advisor to several UN and Indian health agencies based in MumbaiDr Jasdeep SinghDr Hira added ldquoIndia has embarked on delivering the worldrsquos largest indigenous COVID19 vaccine program to its young and adult population gt21 years population in a phased manner Based on scientific data available globally the national health leaders at Niti Aayog and MOH drafted a strategic design to get the best outcomes of COVID19 vaccine delivery starting in midJanuary 2021 as the nation took the leap forward to protect its citizens In Phase1 over 25 crore frontline workers in the health enforcement and national service sectors have been vaccinated by midMarch 2021 Scalingup vaccinations in government and private sector facilities are being increased from 1 million to 2 million doses each day Now on each case of severe COVID19 disease and death will be preventable after a critical mass of the population is fully vaccinated say 607037rdquoProfessor Dr Seyed Ehtesham HasnainSaid Dr Hira ldquoWhile the COV2 variants were spreading across the globe simultaneously the Indian researchers and scientists were working to characterise these variants The scientists pointed out that the Infectious Diseases model is a triangle of three elements Host Virus Environmental factors We were concerned about the variants of SARSCOV2 as reported from Britain South Africa and Brazil because of their increased transmissibility and developing higher resistance to vaccineinduced immunity A novel computer modelling platform is developed by the Indian scientists at IIT to reconstruct the structure of variant COV2 viruses as ascribed to the British South African and the Brazilian variants The Indian study found that there are three main sections of the COV2 virus namely the S protein N protein and ORF8 section wherein 628 missing aminoacids caused the formation of mutant strainsrdquoDr Shubhash HiraAdded Dr Hira ldquoIt appears from the computer simulation Indian study of the COV2 variants that is published in the Swiss medical journal that as resistance builds to vaccineinduced immunity the preventive vaccination program for SARSCOV2 is likely to become a yearly affair like the lsquoflu shotsrsquo While the COV2 virus is mutating at a faster pace the Indian computer simulation model that mapped the British South African and Brazilian mutants is further able to help predict the direction of future mutations in the structure of this virus which in turn will affect its functionality As we understand now the variant strains of COV2 are likely to cause failure of first generation diagnostic tests build resistance against emerging antiviral medicines and may require annual vaccine shots to cope with these resistances This scenario can change completely if the nasal vaccines get introduced faster It is anticipated that the nasal COVID19 vaccines can be one of the game changers in terms of stopping this pandemicGlobal ramificationsDr Jasdeep Singh Young Scientist at Institute of Molecular Medicine ndash Jamia Hamdard New Delhi another coauthor based in New Delhi said ldquoThe SARSCoV2 has accumulated multiple mutations during its global circulation for a year Recently three Lineages of Concerns have been identified owing to a sudden surge in COVID19 cases in the UK South Africa and Brazil The lineages B117 UK B1351 South African and B11281P1 Brazilian are estimated to be spreading more easily and quickly 14 times than other SARSCoV2 variants recent evidence also suggests that these variants can cause more severe illness thus contribute to high death rates As of March 12 2021 all of three variants have been detected in Indian population as import cases but no evidence of community transmission has been documentedrdquoDr Singh added ldquoThe new strains have accumulated different clusters of mutations In our recently published work we have assessed the structurefunction relationship of these mutations Interestingly some of the mutations in the new variants can also cause antibody resistance indicating that it can lead to reinfection as seen in the second wave of the South AfricanBrazilian population and may also bypass the immune recognition by the vaccine induced antibodies This is particularly concerning when vaccination drives are at full throttle in India and some other nations Although a recent study not peer reviewed hints at the neutralization capacity of Bharat Biotech BBV152COVAXINtrade against UK variants its efficacy against other variants needs to be assessed Given the timeconsuming process of licensing a vaccine along with the emergence of new variants immunization programs might become a perennial thing until the end of the pandemic Alternatively this might also compel vaccine manufacturers to design updated candidates and roll out of recurring ldquoflulike shotsrdquo annually for tackling COVID19rdquoProfessor Dr Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain Vice Chancellor Jamia Hamdard Deemed to be University former member 20042014 Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India SACPM and Former Member University Grant Commission UGC While in India we are not seeing the effects of these new variants primarily because of a number of successful physical control measures and biological reasons the story emerging from South Africa Brazil and other parts of the world appears to be quite alarming Given the kind of impact these mutations will have on diagnostic test failures and possible interference with the vaccination efforts one can only wait and watch There is also a risk of new SARSCoV2 variants emerging in future and the consequence of such variants on global efforts to control and contain COVID19 cannot be underestimated In summary these studies have shown that the variants can have significant therapeutic and public health impacts with consequences for the economyldquoThe advent of new immune escaping strains can further shift decline of the pandemic and continue to disrupt global health services This necessitates the need for periodic mass sequencing of COVID19 samples in our country to assess spread of these specific variants or new variants which may arise in future It also cautions that onetime vaccinations may not be sufficient for protection of COVID19 and that people might get reinfected with a newer variant in future Like we quoted postvaccine reinfections with new variants are likely to keep everyone guessing the end of the pandemic for a long time to comerdquo Dr Singh concludedThreeNo of COVID19 variants that were mapped into the computer simulation