Researchers believe the current COVID-19 vaccines are effective against the UK variant of the disease. A separate variant has also been identified in South Africa, and that research is still underway.
Dr. Shankar Kurra is Vice President of Medical Affairs at Monument Health. He says researchers are using blood samples from people who participated in COVID-19 vaccine trials to see how their antibodies respond to the variants.
“The current vaccines are effective against the UK variant. The best evidence we have is very strongly favoring that this vaccine is not impacted in any way. What we do not know is this new variant that’s in South Africa that’s emerged, and they’re currently doing the same kind of test using the blood samples from trial participants who developed antibodies and seeing if that will neutralize this variant from South Africa.”
Dr. Kurra says the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is genetically similar to the SARS virus from 2003. Based on those similarities, he says it’s very unlikely the current virus will mutate fast enough to make the vaccines ineffective.
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