LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Data on the highly contagious
COVID-19 variant identified in England do not suggest that
vaccines will be less effective against it, while data on the
South African variant should be available within weeks, a top
British vaccines expert said.
"We have the most data on the UK variant. That doesn't
suggest that it will be any less well protected against by the
vaccine," said Wei Shen Lim, chair of Covid-19 Immunisation on
Britain's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Asked specifically about the South African variant, he said
that Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine trials had been conducted in
South Africa which was an advantage in terms of data collection.
"We're told that very very soon, the Oxford and AZ trials
may be able to examine in quite some detail whether their
vaccine will protect against the new variant. I think that is a
matter of weeks."
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Estelle Shirbon; editing by
William James)