Coronavirus: South Africa strain ‘more of a problem’ than UK variant, says British health secretary
- The South African variant is driving a surge of infections in the country, and like the UK strain, it appears to be more infectious than previous mutations
- Still, there is no evidence yet that the Covid-19 vaccines approved so far will not work against the new strains
“I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant,” UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on BBC radio on Monday, citing a conversation over the Christmas holiday with his counterpart in South Africa. “One of the reasons they know they’ve got a problem is because, like us, they have an excellent genomic scientific capability to be able to study the details of the virus. And it is even more of a problem than the UK new variant.”
The South African variant is driving a surge of infections in the country, and like the UK strain, it appears to be more infectious than previous mutations. Still, there is no evidence yet that the Covid-19 vaccines approved so far will not work against the new strains.
To say the South African strain is more problematic than the UK variant is “politics rather than science” at this point, said Richard Lessells, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Researchers must first do the experiments necessary to understand the new variants, he said. So far, officials have provided little evidence to support the idea that the South African strain is more problematic than the new one first identified in Britain, where cases are also surging.
“Vaccine efficacy is clearly one of the big questions that arises from discovering these new variables, and we understand everybody wants answers immediately,” Lessells said. “But it takes a little bit of time to get the answers.”
