Prognosis

Pfizer-BioNTech Shot Likely to Foil Mutant, New Study Shows

Vaccine neutralizes coronavirus variant that emerged in U.K.
Study on South Africa strain suggests some re-infection threat

Vials of the Pfizer BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at the Centenario Hospital Miguel Hidalgo in Aguascalientes, Mexico, on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2020. The number of confirmed cases in the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico stands at 1.57 million as of 7:30am Mexico City, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News.Photographer: Mauricio Palos/Bloomberg

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By Naomi Kresge and Janice Kew

January 20, 2021 at 8:59 AM UTC

Updated on

January 20, 2021 at 2:24 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE built the case that their Covid-19 vaccine will protect against the new variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the U.K. with results of another lab trial.

Like previous work out of the University of Texas Medical Branch, the results published on Wednesday showed that antibodies in the blood of people who had been vaccinated were able to neutralize a version of the mutant virus that was created in the lab. The study was published on preprint server BioRxiv prior to peer review.