The new Moderna/NIH B.1.351-specific vaccine study should add the P.1 variant

Two manuscripts from Brazil, newly posted by accomplished researchers on preprint servers, report that the P.1 variant “associated with rapid transmission in Manaus” (by Faria N.  et al.) and reported in the U.S. and 28 other nations, “may escape from neutralizing antibodies generated in response to polyclonal stimulation against previously circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2” (Souza W. et al.).

Notably, at least five mutations, including two antibody-evading mutations, are shared by the P.1 variant and the B.1.351 variant dominant in South Africa. Thus, the Moderna/NIH new vaccine study starting this month with the B.1.351 variant should add the P.1 variant to the outcome measurement comparing the virus neutralization of the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and the B.1.351 variant described here Feb. 28).

In addition, efforts to test a P.1-specific variant vaccine in Brazil for similar laboratory studies of antibody neutralization, as well as clinical efficacy, should be supported urgently.  

Although I consider the data from only eight vaccine volunteers too preliminary and not statistically significant, Souza et al. also state in their preprint manuscript  (pdf p. 8 of 23) “Notwithstanding this point, these results suggest P.1 virus might escape from neutralizing antibodies induced by an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (i.e., CoronaVac).”