Amid reports of emergence of highly transmissible Covid variant XBB in various countries including India, an international team of researchers has identified a pan-variant and ultra-potent neutralizing antibody that can offset Omicron variants.
In India, the XBB subvariant of Covid-19’s Omicron variant is fast emerging as the dominant, with nine states reporting cases of it with Tamil Nadu topping the list.
The researchers in the study published in the journal Science.Named 'S2X324', said that its neutralizing potency was largely unaffected by any of the Omicron variants tested.
The scientists suggested that combining this antibody with others in a cocktail might reduce the chances of the virus becoming antibody-treatment resistant. The team looked at several aspects of the effects of exposure to earlier forms of the SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen -- or immune-provoking protein -- on the immune system's reaction to the Omicron variants. They explained that mutations in two of the main antibody targets in the virus explain why there is markedly reduced antibody neutralising ability against these variants, especially in people who have not received booster doses. "As a result, an increasing number of reinfections are occurring," the researchers wrote, "even though these cases tend to be milder than in infections of immunologically naA-ve individuals".
The Omicron variants appeared at the end of 2021 and have marked genetic differences from the ancestral SARS-CoV-2.
The many, distinct mutations in their infection machinery have enabled them to escape from antibodies elicited from the original series of vaccines, from a history of infection, or from both of those two immune-system training events.
People who had a breakthrough infection after vaccination also produced neutralising antibodies against these variants in the mucus lining the inside of their noses.