The South African variant of coronavirus “is more of a problem” than the UK

A variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa is more problematic than the strain found in the UK, the British Health Minister has said, as both varieties continue to spread rapidly.

Speaking to the BBC on Monday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the variant found in South Africa was of particular concern.

“I am incredibly concerned about the South African variant, which is why we took the steps we took to restrict all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC’s Today program.

“This is a very, very important problem … and it’s even more of a problem than the new UK variant.”

Both the UK and South Africa are struggling with an increase in Covid-19 infections, which have been largely attributed to new mutations in the virus that make it more transmissible.

The new UK variant was first identified in Kent, south-east England, in December. British authorities alerted the World Health Organization to its appearance.

Experts note that while the new variant makes the virus more easily spread, it does not appear to be more deadly. However, UK hospitals are under pressure from a dramatic increase in infections and admissions.

Questions have been raised about how coronavirus vaccines will work against the new variants.

Several experts have said they expect vaccines, such as those from Pfizer and BioNTech, and the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca, to protect against new strains.

In early December, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan tried to dispel fears about the variants, telling the BBC it was “very unlikely” that the latest mutations would make current vaccines work. The WHO has said more research is needed “to understand the impact of specific mutations on viral properties and the effectiveness of diagnoses, therapies and vaccines.”

Regius ’professor of medicine at Oxford University, John Bell, said on Sunday that, however, the variant identified in South Africa was worrisome in this regard.

“They both have several different mutations, so they’re not a single mutation,” he told Times Radio. “And the mutations associated with the South African form are actually quite substantial changes in the structure of the protein (virus ear).”

He said there were questions about whether the Pfizer / BioNTech and Oxford University / AstraZeneca vaccines would be “disabled” in the presence of these mutations.

The team behind the Oxford University test was investigating the effect of the variants on their vaccine, he said, adding that his gut feeling was that it would still be effective against the strain identified in the UK, but was more uncertain about the one identified in South Africa.

However, he told the radio station that if the vaccine did not work in this variant, it is likely that the vaccines could be adapted and this would not take up to a year.

Coronavirus vaccines are the only bright spot in a pandemic that continues to rage in the West. On Monday, the UK launched the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after launching the Pfizer / BioNTech feature in December.

Meanwhile, restrictions on public life continue and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, has hinted that more restrictions could be introduced in England. Many parts of the country are already effectively closed, with all but the essential shops closed and people have said to stay home as long as possible. However, additional restrictions could be introduced in some parts of the country with more relaxed measures.

The UK has reported more than 2.6 million cases of the virus and more than 75,000 deaths to date, according to a Johns Hopkins University count, and the new variant of the virus has led to an increase in infections in London and the south. -this and is beginning to appear in other parts of the country.

In South Africa, more than 1.1 million cases and nearly 30,000 deaths have been reported, and the new strain has become dominant in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

The variant originally identified in the United Kingdom has also been discovered in some European countries and the United States, which caused many nations to ban flights from the United Kingdom. For its part, the UK has banned visitors from South Africa.