By Oxford jab offers lower protection against South African variants
Scientists suggest Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine offers “minimal protection” against mild disease from the South Africa variant.
A new study involved about 2,000 people who were on average 31 years old, however Prof Sarah Gilbert, Oxford lead vaccine developer, said vaccines should still protect against severe disease.
She added developers were likely to have modified the Oxford jab by the autumn this year to combat the new South Africa variant.
More than 100 cases of the South Africa variant have been found in the UK.
Early trials suggest the vaccine offers “minimal protection” against mild and moderate disease caused by the variant and a booster may be required to increase protection.
Mr Zahawi, who is overseeing the vaccine rollout, said: “We see very much probably an annual or booster in the autumn and then an annual (jab), in the way we do with flu vaccinations where you look at what variant of virus is spreading around the world, rapidly produce a variant of vaccine and then begin to vaccinate and protect the nation.”
He also stated the UK government has ruled out issuing “vaccine passports” to enable people who have had the jab against coronavirus to travel abroad.
Scientists have said hundreds of new variants are predicted to mutate from the virus and developing vaccines further will be a continuous process.
Prof Gilbert told the Andrew Marr Show that current vaccines “have a reduction in efficacy against some of the variant viruses”.
“What that is looking like is that we may not be reducing the total number of cases but there’s still protection in that case against deaths, hospitalisations and severe disease.”
