South African variant unlikely to 'completely negate' COVID vaccines, scientist says - TODAY

A variant of the coronavirus first detected in South Africa is unlikely to completely negate the immunising effects of vaccines, a researcher studying it told Reuters.

British scientists expressed concern on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines may not be able to protect against the variant identified by South African scientists and which has spread internationally.

Richard Lessells, an infectious disease expert at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, which played a central role in identifying the variant known as 501Y.V2, said his understanding was that the comments were not based on any new data but on shared information.

"They are voicing the same concerns that we articulated when we first released this information, that the pattern of mutations did give us concern," Lessells said on Tuesday.