A new COVID-19 variant that vaccines are reportedly less effective against, referred to as the Lambda variant, has been classified as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Lambda variant is currently circulating several South American countries at a high rate, and the presence of critical mutations has been detected in the spike protein, The Jerusalem Post reports.
While the impact of the mutations on patient antibody immunity and vaccine efficiency are not fully known, the fact that the Delta variant has reduced vaccine efficiency to around 64% has led the WHO to think there may cause for concern over a similar resistance.
The effects of the Lambda variant were examined by a team of researchers, and the results were shared in a non-peer reviewed study published by Health Science website "medRxiv."
The researchers used plasma samples from healthcare workers in Santiago, Chile who had received two doses of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, in order to compare the efficiency of the vaccine against the new variant in comparison to how it had reacted to older strains.
They concluded that the mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant vastly reduce the vaccine efficiency in comparison to the Alpha and Gamma variants, although no comparison was made between the Lambda and Delta variants.
