The findings are part of a paper published by Indian researchers in a Swiss medical journal
Police personnel getting vaccinated at Nair hospital on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje
Preventive vaccination for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) 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 anti-virals and will require annual vaccine shots. The Infectious Diseases model is a triangle of three elements: host, virus, environment.
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Health and frontline workers get vaccinated at Nair Hospital on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje
The research study was conducted by a group of scientists from various institutions such as JH-Institute 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 ‘Structure Function Analyses of New SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.7 (UK), B.1.351 (South African) and B.1.1.28.1/P.1 (Brazilian) Clinical, Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Public Health Implications’ in the medical journal ‘Viruses’, published by MDPI (Multi-Disciplinary Publishing Institute) in Basel, Switzerland.
The simulation model
“India hasn’t published any scientific publication yet on variants of SARS-CoV2 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 – covering mouth, social distancing and hand sanitizing, should continue to be a part of our day-to-day life, for many years to come,” said Dr Shubhash Hira, one of the co-authors and Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington-Seattle and advisor to several UN and Indian health agencies, based in Mumbai.
Dr Jasdeep Singh
Dr. Hira, added, “India has embarked on delivering the world’s largest indigenous COVID-19 vaccine program to its young and adult population (>21 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 COVID-19 vaccine delivery starting in mid-January 2021 as the nation took the leap forward to protect its citizens. In Phase1, over 2.5 crore frontline workers in the health, enforcement, and national service sectors have been vaccinated by mid-March 2021. Scaling-up 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 COVID-19 disease and death will be preventable after a critical mass of the population is fully vaccinated, say 60-70%.”
Professor Dr Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain
Said Dr. Hira, “While the COV-2 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 SARS-COV-2 as reported from Britain, South Africa, and Brazil because of their increased transmissibility and developing higher resistance to vaccine-induced immunity. A novel computer modelling platform is developed by the Indian scientists at IIT to reconstruct the structure of variant COV-2 viruses as ascribed to the British, South African, and the Brazilian variants. The Indian study found that there are three main sections of the COV-2 virus, namely the S protein, N protein, and ORF8 section wherein 6-28 missing amino-acids caused the formation of mutant strains.”
Dr. Shubhash Hira
Added Dr. Hira, “It appears from the computer simulation Indian study of the COV-2 variants that is published in the Swiss medical journal that as resistance builds to vaccine-induced immunity, the preventive vaccination program for SARS-COV-2 is likely to become a yearly affair like the ‘flu shots’. While the COV-2 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 COV-2 are likely to cause failure of first generation diagnostic tests, build resistance against emerging anti-viral 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 COVID-19 vaccines can be one of the game changers in terms of stopping this pandemic.
Global ramifications
Dr Jasdeep Singh, Young Scientist at Institute of Molecular Medicine – Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, another co-author, based in New Delhi said, “The SARS-CoV-2 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 COVID-19 cases in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. The lineages; B.1.1.7 (UK), B.1.351 (South African) and B.1.1.28.1/P.1 (Brazilian) are estimated to be spreading more easily and quickly (~1.4 times) than other SARS-CoV-2 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 documented.”
Dr Singh added, “The new strains have accumulated different clusters of mutations. In our recently published work, we have assessed the structure-function 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 African/Brazilian 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 BBV152/COVAXIN™ against UK variants, its efficacy against other variants needs to be assessed. Given the time-consuming 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 “flu-like shots” annually for tackling COVID-19.”
Professor Dr Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain, Vice Chancellor, Jamia Hamdard (Deemed to be University), former member (2004-2014), Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India (SAC-PM) 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 SARS-CoV-2 variants emerging in future and the consequence of such variants on global efforts to control and contain COVID-19 cannot be underestimated. In summary, these studies have shown that the variants can have significant therapeutic and public health impacts with consequences for the economy,"
“The 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 COVID-19 samples in our country to assess spread of these specific variants or new variants which may arise in future. It also cautions that one-time vaccinations may not be sufficient for protection of COVID-19 and that people might get reinfected with a newer variant in future. Like we quoted, post-vaccine reinfections with new variants are likely to keep everyone guessing the end of the pandemic for a long time to come,” Dr Singh concluded.
Three
No. of COVID-19 variants that were mapped into the computer simulation
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