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Scientists in South Africa are conducting urgent tests to see if vaccines for Covid-19 will be effective against the country’s variant of the virus.
“This is the most pressing question we face right now,” said Dr. Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert who is working on the country’s genomic studies of the variant.
“We are urgently doing experiments in the laboratory to test the variant,” Lessells told the Associated Press on Monday (January 4). This is done against the blood of people with antibodies and against the blood of people who have received vaccines.
The tests, called neutralizing trials, will help determine the reliability of vaccines against the variant, he said.
In an interview on Monday, UK Health and Welfare Secretary Matt Hancock said he had been chatting with Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize about the new variant over the Christmas period.
“I am very concerned about the South African variant. That is why we took the steps we did to restrict all flights from South Africa and movement from South Africa, and to insist that anyone who has been to South Africa isolate themselves.
“This is a very important problem. In fact, I spoke to my South African counterpart over Christmas, and one of the reasons they know they have a problem is because, like us, they have excellent genomic scientific ability to study the details of the disease. virus. And it’s even more troublesome than the new UK variant. “
Scientists are also not entirely sure that Covid-19 vaccines will work on a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa. ITV political editor it said on Monday, citing an unidentified scientific adviser to the British government.
According to one of the government’s scientific advisers, the reason for Matt Hancock’s ‘incredible concern’ about the South African variant Covid-19 is that they are not as sure that the vaccines will be as effective against it as they are for the variant of the UK, ”said ITV political editor Robert Peston.
Hancock said the second variant will make life “much more difficult” as it makes it difficult to control the spread of the coronavirus because the variant is transmitted much faster.
Read: Government knocks down ‘level 5 lockdown’ rumors
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