Covid-19 Update: Oxford Vaccine Appears Less Effective Against South African Variant, Says Report

Both manufacturers of the vaccine including Oxford University and AstraZeneca are working towards adapting the vaccine against this variant and will advance rapidly through clinical development so that it is ready for Autumn delivery if required.

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On the international front, British drugmaker AstraZeneca’s vaccine developed in association with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African variant of Covid-19.  The findings are based on early data from a trial, as per the Reuters report. Also Read: 'They Obviously Didn't Know Very Much': EAM Jaishankar On Foreign Celebs Reacting To Farmers' Protest

The study conducted by South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand and Oxford University has exhibited that the vaccine had significantly reduced efficacy against the South African variant, according to a Financial Times report. Of late, scientist community and public health experts are highly concerned about the coronavirus variants including the so-called British, South African and Brazilian variants, which appear to spread more swiftly than others.

What are the findings?

"In this small phase I/II trial, early data has shown limited efficacy against mild disease primarily due to the B.1.351 South African variant," an AstraZeneca spokesperson has been quoted in the FT report.

As per the report in the daily none of the more than 2,000 trial participants had been hospitalised or died. However, the company has not been able to properly ascertain its effect against severe disease and hospitalisation given that subjects were predominantly young healthy adults.

On the other hand, the pharma company said it believed its vaccine could protect against severe disease, given that the neutralising antibody activity was equivalent to that of other Covid-19 vaccines that have demonstrated protection against severe disease. It is to be noted that the trial, which involved 2,026 people of whom half formed the placebo group, has not been peer-reviewed yet.

While thousands of individual changes have arisen as the virus mutates into new variants, only a tiny minority are likely to be important or change the virus in an appreciable way, according to the British Medical Journal.

Both manufacturers of the vaccine including Oxford University and AstraZeneca are working towards adapting the vaccine against this variant and will advance rapidly through clinical development so that it is ready for Autumn delivery if required.

On Friday Oxford said their vaccine has similar efficacy against the British coronavirus variant as it does to the previously circulating variants.