ZURICH/FRANKFURT - Drug makers including BioNTech and Moderna are scrambling to test their COVID-19 vaccines against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus that is raging in Britain, the latest c
hallenge in the breakneck race to curb the pandemic.
The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage may be up to 70% more infectious and more of a concern for children. It has sown chaos in Britain, prompting a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with Europe and threatening to further isolate the island country.
Germany's CureVac said it does not expect the variant to affect the efficacy of its experimental shot, which is based on the same messenger RNA technology used by Pfizer-BioNTech. "In principle, the beauty of the mRNA technology is we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation," Sahin said.