London: The British Health Minister warned that coronavirus vaccines may be less effective against new variants of the disease, such as those found in South Africa and Brazil, and that stricter border controls are justified.
“We don’t know the degree of that,” Matt Hancock said in an interview on Sky News on Sunday, commenting on the extent of any potential reduced efficacy of the vaccines. “In the meantime, we’ve got to have a precautionary principle that says let’s not bring these new variants back to the UK.”
A nurse prepares a dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Health authorities remain concerned how it will work against new strains of the coronavirus.Credit:AP
Hancock’s warning came as Britain reported it had vaccinated more than 5 million people, including three-quarters of those over 80. Hancock said the government is conducting a vaccine trial on the South African variant to study its response to the inoculation, and that he’s concerned about new variants developing elsewhere.
“The new variant I really worry about is the one that’s out there but hasn’t been spotted,” he said, adding that the UK is offering its genome-sequencing capability to other countries to help them identify new strains. There are 77 known cases of the South African variant in Britain, and at least 9 cases of the Brazilian variant, Hancock said on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
