Scientists in UK and health officials are extremely worried that a new, highly infectious strain of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa may be resistant to the current generation of vaccines.
Professor John Bell, Regius Chair of Medicine at the University of Oxford, who helped develop one of the leading vaccines against the disease, said he is more concerned about the South African mutation than the widely feared strain that emanated from Kent in the UK and triggered major travel restrictions around the globe.
“The mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein,” Bell told Times Radio. “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.”
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