South Africa variant ‘may get around jab protection’
THE South African variant of the coronavirus could defy vaccines, says a scientist involved in the Oxford jab.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was “incredibly worried” about the South African variant after the intervention by Sir John Bell.
A small number of cases of the more contagious African variant have made it in to the UK, which is currently battling a huge surge in its own variant.
Sir John, regius professor of medicine at Oxford, said that of the two: “I would worry a lot about the South African strain.
“The mutations associated with the
South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein. My gut feeling is the vaccine will be still effective against the Kent strain. I don’t know about the South African strain – there’s a big question mark about that.”
Direct flights from South Africa are suspended after the Government detected cases of the variant from the country already in the UK.
Visitors arriving to the UK who have been in or through South Africa in the previous 10 days are barred. Mr
Hancock said: “I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant, and that’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa. This is a very, very significant problem... even more of a problem than the UK new variant.”
If the virus does change, it should be possible to tweak vaccines without full regulatory approval. Sir John estimated that would take a month to six weeks.
Sir John, who sits on the Government’s vaccine taskforce, added: “These are not the only two variants we will see.”
Prof Francois Balloux, of University College London, said: “The ‘South African variant’ carries a mutation in the spike protein called E484K, which is not present in the ‘UK strain’.”
He said the mutation helped the virus bypass immune protection given by prior infection or vaccination.
But he added: “It is not anticipated that this mutation is sufficient for the South African variant to bypass the protection provided by vaccines. It’s possible that new variants will affect the efficacy of vaccines, but we shouldn’t make that assumption yet.”