BioNTech co-founder Ugur Sahin on Wednesday voiced confidence that the vaccine that his firm collectively developed with Pfizer works towards the Indian variant of the coronavirus.
“We are nonetheless testing the Indian variant, however the Indian variant has mutations that now we have already examined for and which our vaccine works towards, so I’m assured,” 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.
India is going through surging new circumstances and deaths within the pandemic, and fears are rising that the variant could possibly be contributing to the unfolding disaster.
The World Health Organization has stated the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19 first present in India had as of Tuesday been detected in “not less than 17 nations”.
The health agency recently listed B.1.617 — which counts several sub-lineages with slightly different mutations and characteristics — as a “variant of interest”.
But to date it has stopped in need of declaring it a “variant of concern”, which would have indicated that it is more dangerous than the original version of the virus by, for instance, being more transmissible, deadly or able to dodge vaccine protections.
The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine was the first to win authorisation in the West, and has since been deployed in dozens of countries worldwide.
Giving an update of the authorisation process in China, Sahin said approval was “very possible in July”.
“We are virtually by means of with all questions,” he stated.
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