Russia's Gamaleya Centre Received No Sample of New COVID-19 Strain With 32 Mutations

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology has not yet received the new strain of coronavirus with 32 mutations; it is necessary to test the effectiveness of the Sputnik V vaccine against this variant, the centre's director, Alexander Gintsburg, told Sputnik.

"We do not yet have a strain of a new variant of the virus. The effectiveness of a vaccine can only be determined experimentally, and for this, we just need the strain", he said.

So far, there is no reason to talk about the need to update the Sputnik V vaccine due to the new strain, Gintsburg said.

"In theory, it is difficult to say how effective a vaccine will be against this variant, but Sputnik V provides the broadest spectrum of neutralising antibodies compared to other vaccines, so it is more likely to be effective against the new strain than other vaccines", he said.

The new variant (B.1.1.529) was discovered in South Africa and Botswana. It has an "extremely high" number of mutations in the spike protein and may potentially be resistant to antibodies that can fight the virus.