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Breakthrough COVID-19 Cases Raise Concern Over B.1.617 Variant

CEPI Offers Testing Against Variants Of Concern

 
• By Vibha Ravi

As the B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV-2 spreads to countries including the UK and US after having caused havoc in India, vaccine effectiveness against this variant is under the lens with breakthrough cases reported post full vaccination. Meanwhile, CEPI’s offer to help in testing against variants has potential to harmonize assessment of COVID-19 vaccines performance.

Breakthrough concept
Are SARS-CoV-2 Variants Breaking Through The Defense Of COVID-19 Vaccines? • Source: Alamy

The B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV-2, first identified in India, has recently been labelled a variant of concern (VOC) by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to its higher transmissibility. With real world evidence of breakthrough cases post-vaccination, the new variant of the virus which originated in China is causing concern around the world.

It joins four others - B.1.1.7 (Kent, UK), B.1.351 (South Africa), P1 (Japan, ex Manaus, Brazil) and B.1.1.7 with E484K (Bristol, UK) - as a VOC.

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