COVID-19: New Vaccine Being Developed To Tackle South African Variant

Researchers working on a new vaccine designed to combat the South African variant of coronavirus are hopeful it will be ready to administer by the autumn, Oxford vaccine lead researcher Professor Sarah Gilbert has said.

The expert told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show her team currently has “a version with the South African spike sequence in the works”.

She went on: “It’s not quite ready to vaccinate people with yet, but as all of the developers are using platform technologies, these are ways of making a vaccine that are very quick to adapt.

“This year we expect to show that the new version of the vaccine will generate antibodies that recognise the new variant. Then it will be very much like working on flu vaccines.

“It looks very much like it will be available for the autumn.

“We’re already working on the first part of the manufacturing process in Oxford, that will be passed on to other members of the manufacturing supply chain as we go through the spring.

“It looks very much likely that we can have a new version ready to use in the autumn.”