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BEIJING: There are no signs that the new coronavirus variants affect the immune impact of a vaccine that China just authorized for public use, a disease control official said on Friday (January 1).
The takeover of a subsidiary of the state-owned Sinopharm was approved on Thursday, a day after news of the first imported case from China of a variant spreading in Britain.
READ: China grants its first COVID-19 vaccine approval to Sinopharm
“There is no need to panic,” Xu Wenbo, an official with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told state television.
“The mutated variant, compared to previous mutated variants … has no obvious change so far in its ability to cause disease.
He said that no impact of the variants had been detected on the immunological effect of the vaccine.
READ: China confirms first UK COVID-19 variant case
The variant that British scientists have dubbed VUI – 202012/01 includes a genetic mutation in the “spike” protein, which could theoretically result in easier spread of COVID-19.
Xu added that the mutation in the virus protein would not affect the sensitivity of most of the COVID-19 tests made in China that target the nucleic acids of the virus, which contain genetic information.
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