Pfizer Inc and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine showed to work against a key mutation in the highly transmissible new variants of the coronavirus discovered in the UK and South Africa, according to a laboratory study conducted by the US drugmaker. They found the  efficacy of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine (official name BNT162b2) might sustain against the newly-detected mutant strains from the United Kingdom and South Africa

The paper was published on the BioRxiv website for biology research on Thursday. The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch and funded by Pfizer and BioNTech, as stated in the Acknowledgments section.

"Rapidly spreading variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have arisen in the United Kingdom and South Africa share the spike N501Y substitution ... We generated isogenic N501 and Y501 SARS-CoV-2. Sera of 20 participants in a previously reported trial of the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 had equivalent neutralizing titters to the N501 and Y501 viruses," the paper's abstract read.

Announcing the discovery of the mutant virus in December, UK health authorities said it had been established up to 70 percent more contagious than the original strain.

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