Fears South African strain may resist jab

VACCINATIONS may fail to protect against the South African variant of Covid-19, scientists have warned.

The new mutation has become the most dominant strain in parts of South Africa.

Matt Hancock admitted yesterday: ‘This is a very, very significant problem.

‘I spoke to my South African opposite number over Christmas and one of the reasons they know they have a problem is because, like us, they have an excellent genomic-scientific [programme] to be able to study the virus and it is even more of a problem than the UK new variant.’

The Health Secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he was ‘incredibly worried’ about the South African strain.

UK scientists expressed concern yesterday that the new variant may be harder to track with current tests – and that the Covid-19 vaccines being rolled out may not be able to protect against it.

Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said the South African strain has a number of mutations, including to the spike protein that is targeted by both the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines.

Dr Clarke said the mutations are more concerning than those to the other new strain already spreading throughout Britain, which emerged in Kent before Christmas. ‘They cause more extensive alteration of the spike protein than the changes in the Kent variant and may make the virus less susceptible to the immune response triggered by the vaccines,’ he said.

‘While it is more infectious, it remains unclear whether it causes a more severe form of the disease.

‘The South African variant is a more difficult virus to track as it lacks some mutations in the spike found in the Kent virus which make it easily detectable by the PCR test used by the NHS.’

Professor Sarah Gilbert, one of the scientists behind the Oxford vaccine, told the BBC: ‘We are looking at how well [the vaccines] work on these new variants and others that will come in the future. And we’re also thinking about what we’ll need to do if it ever becomes necessary to replace the version of the vaccine we’re using now with a new one.

‘We don’t think we’re at that point yet, but it is possible that in the future we need to make a tweak to the vaccine. So, with my team, I’m working on how we make that change really quickly if we ever need to.’

BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin – who developed the vaccine being used by Pfizer – said it would take about six weeks to tweak doses if necessary, though he said he believed his vaccine would work against the Kent variant.