The SARS-CoV-2 variants are rapidly evolving in infected hosts by either immune selection or natural genetic drift, thereby raising a global concern regarding the durability of COVID-19 vaccines. Understanding the trends in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and mapping the mutational landscape of the antigen is highly imperative to successfully combat the ongoing pandemic and future outbreaks. According to a study published on the pre-print platform MedRxiv, researchers from the USA and India have presented the first-known evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines restrict the evolution and antigenic escape pathways of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants .
The longitudinal study was conducted using data from over 183 countries or territories , available in the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database. The researchers studied 1.8 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes to capture…
