Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
Molecular biologist Ahmad Rusdan Utomo cites uses the Covid-19 vaccine still relatively effective though a variant corona virus which mutates when it increases.
This was revealed by Ahmad amid doubts from a number of parties about the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine amid news of the mutation of the corona virus which is more easily transmitted in Britain and South Africa.
“Theoretically, the use of vaccines is still effective, especially if the vaccine is above 60 percent. That’s good enough,” he said when contacted by telephone, Friday (8/1).
Moreover, according to him, the mutation of the corona virus is slow, only 2 RNA mutations occur in a month, out of a total of 30 thousand genomes that make up the corona virus.
In addition, Ahmad explained that the mutation of the corona virus will not affect the effectiveness of human antibodies that are formed from injecting the vaccine to eradicate the corona virus.
The vaccine in question is a vaccine that uses an inactivated whole virus. Because, vaccines like this make antibodies to recognize the virus as a whole.
“So it should be theoretically [mutasi virus corona] will not interfere with the antibody system, “he explained.
However, Ahmad noted that vaccines are only designed to recognize the virus’ horn protein (spike). For example, vaccines are developed using mRNA technology.
Because, there is the potential for the vaccine to be less effective if it turns out that part of the horn protein is mutated. Several vaccines are known to use mRNA techniques such as those developed by Moderna and Pfizer.
“Who is worried about vaccines that target the spike, what if the spike mutates?”
However, the mutations in the spike protein are not completely bad for humans. If the mutation makes the horn protein make it more difficult for the virus to infect cells, that’s a good thing for humans.
Previously, scientists from England were worried that the function of the vaccine that had been found would not work against the new mutation of the corona virus. The reason is, there are more extensive changes in certain parts (protein spikes) in the virus. The spike protein is the part of the virus that is used to infect human cells.
In addition, this new variant of the corona virus has a higher viral load than the previously circulating coronavirus, which means that the concentration of virus particles in the patient’s body is higher. So, it is possible that this will contribute to the ease with which Covid-19 is transmitted.
(can / eks)
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