By Elishya Perera
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CU)_COVID-19 vaccines may be ineffective against the new and more infectious South African variant, an expert on the team which developed the Oxford jab has warned.
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, said the variant from South Africa is more concerning that the Kent one, since vaccines are believed to be effective against the UK variant.
He said that unlike the UK variant VUI-202012/01, the South African variant 501.V2 has “substantial changes in the structure of the protein” which means vaccines could fail to work.
“My gut feeling is the vaccine will be still effective against the Kent strain,” Sir John told Times Radio. “I don’t know about the South African strain – there’s a big question mark about that.”
Nevertheless, he noted that it is unlikely that these mutations would be entirely ineffective against the vaccines, and instead, they are expected to have a residual effect.
However, on the bright side, Sir John said it was “perfectly possible”, to develop a new vaccine which is effective against this strain within a short period. “It might take a month, or six weeks to get a new vaccine, so everybody should stay calm.”
On December 18, national authorities in South Africa announced the detection of the new variant that is rapidly spreading in three provinces of the country, and several countries, including the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have banned travellers from South Africa to try and contain the spread of the new strain.
