Covishield and Covaxin may work against the double mutant

The Indian government has said that both Covishield and Covaxin will work against the B.1.617 or the double mutant strain of coronavirus. On April 21, The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the Covaxin can neutralise multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 including the double mutant strain. A day later, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) said that the Covishield vaccine too protects people from the new mutant. CCMB lab-tested convalescent plasma from recovered patients and Covishield vaccinated sera. Both convalescent sera and Covishield-vaccinated sera offer protection against the B.1.617 variant. The Covishield sera offered more protection against the virus than the convalescent plasma.The viral load was nil even when the plasma from Covishield-vaccinated people were diluted 80-fold. But the viral load was 3% in the plasma of recovered patients when it was diluted 80-fold. But the study is preliminary and sample numbers are also small (4-5 samples). E484Q and L425R are the two mutations in the double mutant which make the virus more infectious. This strain was found in saliva samples collected from Maharashtra, Punjab, and Delhi.