There is no reason to think that the South African variant will be dominant

LONDON – Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the UK’s deputy medical director, downplayed the chances of a variant of South Africa’s coronavirus spreading across the country in the coming months.

His comments, delivered at a press conference on Monday evening, follow the concern that the AstraZeneca-Oxford University jab shows limited effectiveness against this particular strain, formally known as the B.1.351 mutation.

“There is no reason to think that the South African variant will recover or overcome our current virus in the coming months,” Van-Tam said in reference to the UK mutation that was first found in the south. east of England.

He said the “immediate threat” would be the variant found in the UK, against which vaccines have been shown to be more effective.

South Africa said on Sunday it would suspend the use of the shot in its vaccination program after a study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the AstraZeneca vaccine offered “minimal protection” against mild diseases. moderate caused by the mutation found in southern Africa. Pharmacist AstraZeneca is now running to adapt its Covid-19 vaccine to the new variants.

Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand and others in South Africa and Oxford University noted that the study was small, with only 2,000 volunteers with a mean age of 31 years.

Oxford University said that “protection against moderate-to-severe illness, hospitalization or death could not be assessed in this study, as the target population had such a low risk.”

Van-Tam added Monday later that early modeling data do not suggest a “transmissibility advantage” for the strain found in South Africa. He said there were a small number of cases in the UK at the time, reportedly 147 infections.

“I don’t think it’s something that should worry us right now,” he said.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.