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* Jury out on need for new vaccines - Oxford's Pollard
* South Africa pauses AstraZeneca rollout after study
* New vaccines are being developed to cope with new variants
* World will be 'fine' as shots stop death and grave illness
(Adds details, context)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton
LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - It is not yet clear whether the
world needs a new set of vaccines to fight different variants of
the novel coronavirus but scientists are working on new ones so
there is no reason for alarm, the head of the Oxford Vaccine
Group said on Tuesday.
South Africa has paused a planned rollout of AstraZeneca's
vaccines after data showed it gave minimal protection against
mild infection among young people from the dominant variant
there, stoking fears of a much longer battle with the pathogen.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University aim to produce a next
generation of vaccines that will protect against variants as
soon as the autumn before the Northern Hemisphere winter,
AstraZeneca's research chief said this month.
"There are definitely new questions about variants that
we're going to be addressing. And one of those is: do we need
new vaccines?," Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator on the Oxford
vaccine trial, told BBC radio.
"I think the jury is out on that at the moment, but all
developers are preparing new vaccines so if we do need them,
we'll have them available to be able to protect people."
Vaccines are seen as the swiftest path out of the COVID-19
crisis which has killed 2.33 million people and turned normal
life upside down for billions.
Researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and the
University of Oxford said in a prior-to-peer analysis that the
AstraZeneca vaccine provided minimal protection against mild or
moderate infection from the South African variant among young
people.
TARGET POPULATION
Protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalisation
or death could not be assessed in the study of around 2,000
volunteers who had a median age of 31 as the target population
were at such low risk, the researchers said.
"I think there's clearly a risk of confidence in the way
that people may perceive you. But as I say I don't think that
there is any reason for alarm today," Pollard said.
"The really important question is about severe disease and
we didn't study that in South Africa, because that wasn't the
point of that study, we were specifically asking questions about
young adults."
The so called South African variant, known by scientists as
20I/501Y.V2 or B.1.351, is the dominant one in South Africa and
is circulating in 41 countries around the world including the
United States.
Other major variants include the so-called UK variant, or
20I/501Y.V1, and the Brazilian variant known as P.1.
An analysis of infections by the South African variant
showed there was only a 22% lower risk of developing
mild-to-moderate COVID-19 if vaccinated with the AstraZeneca
shot versus those given a placebo.
If vaccines do not work as effectively as hoped against new
and emerging variants, the world could be facing a much longer -
and more expensive - battle against the virus than previously
thought.
"As long as we have enough immunity to prevent severe
disease, hospitalisations and death then we're going to be fine
in the future in the pandemic," Pollard said.
Pollard said the South African government was right to look
at how it deployed the AstraZeneca vaccine because the original
plan was to use it in young adults - particularly healthcare
workers - who were not expected to get severe disease.
"It needs a relook at how best to deploy the vaccine,"
Pollard said.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton, editing by Ed
Osmond)
