Uncertain If COVID Vaccine Will Deal With South African Pressure: Top Researcher Sir John Bell

A leading vaccine scientist has stated it is still uncertain whether existing vaccines will be effective against a new variation of the unique coronavirus that was first detected in South Africa.

John Bell, a teacher who led the development of the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, told Times Radio that the South African variation– called501 V2– anxious him more than another stress recently spotted in the UK “by some margin.”

Like the U.K. version, the South African stress likewise appears to be more transmissible than the original. First detected in December, it has now been identified in a handful of other countries all over the world, including France and Japan.

These modifications might potentially make vaccines less effective versus this variation, according to Bell, although more research requires to be performed in order to effectively comprehend this issue.

Bell said that researchers were now looking at the “vital concern” of whether or not vaccines will be effective versus the brand-new variations discovered in the U.K. and South Africa– neither of which appear to cause more serious illness.

” It is not prepared for that this mutation is sufficient for the ‘South African’ variant to bypass the defense offered by existing vaccines,” he stated in a declaration.

A nurse administers a dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at the Pontcae Medical Practice in Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales on January 4, 2021.
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