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A modelling study published in PLOS Computational Biology identifies COVID-19 variants with potential to escape cellular immune response.
Prof Charles Bangham, Professor of Immunology, Imperial College London, said:
“This paper shows that some mutations in the Covid virus, SARS-CoV-2, could make some people’s immune response against the virus a little less efficient. But complete escape from immunity is very unlikely. Indeed the authors conclude “…it is presently unlikely that, overall, it [immune escape] poses a threat to the global population.” The efficiency of our immune response to a virus depends largely on our genes, and these genes vary widely between individuals and populations. So it is difficult for the virus to escape everyone’s immunity – even partially – at the same time.”
‘Predicted impact of the viral mutational landscape on the cytotoxic response against SARS-CoV-2’ by Foix A El al was published in PLOS Computational Biology at 19:00 UK time on Thursday 10 February.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009726
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
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