For weeks now, South Africa has been wrestling with an aggressive new wave of Covid-19.
The virus here has mutated to make it much more transmissible – very much like the British variant.
So far there’s no evidence that the virus has become deadlier.
But scientists in South Africa are now racing to establish whether the mutations may have affected the virus’s ability to resist current vaccines.
There’s no hard evidence either way yet.
But the concern arises from the fact that the virus here has mutated more than the one in Britain, and one of those mutations is linked to its ability to connect to antibodies – like those contained in a vaccine.
If that ability to connect is weakened, then the vaccine might not bind, and therefore work, so well.
Experts here are carrying out urgent tests and say they should know if that’s an issue within a matter of weeks.
But they also point out that it should be relatively quick and easy to adjust the vaccines.
What’s more, they say, the current vaccines would still have some effect in neutralising South Africa’s variant of Covid-19.
Source: BBC News
