National Health Commission: The current British mutant strain of the new coronavirus will not affect the protective power of my country's vaccines

On January 9, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council held a press conference on the recent epidemic prevention and control and vaccination. At the press conference, Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Commission and head of the vaccine research and development team of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, responded to the question of whether the British mutant strain of the new coronavirus has affected the effectiveness of the vaccines in China.

Zeng Yixin introduced that in the UK, a new mutation of the virus has occurred, that is, the 501st amino acid of the S protein has mutated. Because this mutation happens to be in a critical position, that is, the RBD region of the S protein, this region is the key site for the virus to bind to human cell receptors, so this mutation has received high attention.

"Recently, two scientific research institutions, the Institute of Medical Experimental Animals of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Institute of Virology of Sun Yat-sen University, have conducted special research on this strain. They compared the viruses that appeared in my country in January, February, March, April, May, and June with the mutant strain in the UK, and found that the antibodies produced by monkeys and humans immunized with the new crown vaccine can neutralize the early virus strains in the country and the mutant virus strains in the UK. This result has strengthened our confidence that our vaccine has the same neutralizing ability against such a mutant strain. At least for now, it seems very clear that the mutation of this virus will not affect the protective effect of the vaccine." Zeng Yixin said.

Zeng Yixin said that the mutation of the virus is an ongoing process that happens every day. "At present, the mutation rate of the new coronavirus is still within an acceptable range, and the mutation rate is not particularly fast. However, we must pay close attention to this issue. On the one hand, we must continue to closely monitor the mutation of the virus, and on the other hand, we must be prepared to respond. In case the mutation accumulates to a certain extent and affects the protective power of the vaccine, we must also make preparations in advance and carry out research on broad-spectrum new coronavirus vaccines or mutated new coronavirus vaccines to effectively respond to possible problems."