The CEO of BioNTech and one of the main scientists responsible for the coronavirus vaccine, which has been distributed widely in Israel, Ugur Sahin, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be effective against over 30 variants, including the more infectious UK and South African variants.
"We have now received real-world data from Israel, for example, on the British variant," Sahin said. "The British variant is now the variant that has spread the most world-wide. We have 97 percent effectiveness, which is even higher than against the original Wuhan variant."
"We have studied over 30 variants so far. We do this in the laboratory and see that our vaccine works just as well with almost all variants. And in the variants where, for example, there is a weaker immune response, we still have a sufficient immune response like the South African variant," Sahin added.
"We have tested the Brazilian variant," Sahin said adding that "We are still testing the Indian variant. But the Indian variant has mutations that we had already investigated and those are the ones that our vaccine is also effective against."