New coronavirus variant could be problematic for vaccines, a second study in two days suggests
From CNN s Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen
As researchers around the world race to see if new coronavirus variants will pose a problem for the vaccines, a second study in two days says a variant from South Africa could possibly do just that.
The variant was first spotted in South Africa in October and has now been found in more than a dozen countries.
In both studies, the work was done in the lab and not in people, so more research is needed to gauge the true threat of the new variant.
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UpdatedThu, Jan 21, 2021 at 8:05 am PT
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Dr. Charles Chiu said the emergence of new variants makes accelerating vaccinations that much more urgent. (Shutterstock)
SAN FRANCISCO, CA A leading California infectious disease expert is among a growing number of scientists expressing concerns that a mutated version of the coronavirus might elude the protection conferred by vaccines, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Dr. Charles Chiu, the director of viral diagnostics at UCSF, said lab studies indicate the mutated strain first found in South Africa may limit the efficacy of vaccines to some degree, the report said.
Chiu s comment was made in the context of him making an urgent call to speed up the pace of vaccinations amid the spread of three variants believed to be significantly more contagious although not more virulent than the strain that s currently dominant in the United States. The United Kingdom and Brazil variants are the others.
As South Africa awaits the arrival of its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines there are growing concerns about a new coronavirus variant known as 501Y.V2 circulating in the country and what the changes in the virus could mean for how the existing vaccines work.
The new variant, which was first identified in the Eastern Cape in August, appears to spread much faster than the original form of the virus. President Cyril Ramaphosa said this week, “This explains the fact that many more people have become infected in a far shorter space of time.”
The number of daily infections during South Africa’s second Covid wave has surpassed those recorded during the first wave. The highest number of daily infections during the first wave was 13,944 on 24 July last year compared to the latest highest number recorded of 21,980 on 8 January.