The South African variant of COVID-19, known as 501.V2, is just one of the thousands of different versions or variants of the SARS-CoV-2 spreading right now. Like the UK variant of the virus, experts are giving much focus on the South African variant because it is more alarming than the other variants.
Experts are worried that the South African variant may not be as vulnerable to the available COVID-19 vaccines, ScienceAlert reported. Studies are underway to know for certain if this claim is accurate and find out how and why.
If it is indeed true, the COVID-19 vaccines could be tweaked to boost effectiveness, which vaccine developers told Reuters that it would take at least six weeks to achieve. These vaccine developers are also running experiments with the coronavirus variant found in the UK, named B.1.1.7.
South African Variant Has More Concerning Mutations
All viruses pick up mutations over time as they make copies of themselves, which means that it is no surprise that the UK and South African variants of SARs-CoV-2 emerged after a year that the virus has been spreading around the world.
However, experts are worried that the South African variant has more concerning mutations than other coronavirus mutations. Virologist and molecular oncology professor Lawrence Young of the Warwick University said that The variant found in South Africa has more mutations on the spike protein than the variant found in the UK.
That is problematic because the current COVID-19 vaccines train the immune system to recognize the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, and having too many mutations on the spike protein means that it becomes unrecognizable to the immune system. That means the virus could enter the body and avoid detection, Young said.
The neutralizing assays, experiments on the new variants would tell if these variants should be a source of concern regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines or not. As of now, health officials said that there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines will not work against the two new variants.
Moreover, The New York Times reported that experts said it would likely take years for the virus to mutate enough to outwit the available vaccines. That means if the vaccines become less effective, it will happen gradually rather than suddenly not working.
"It is going to be a process that occurs over the time scale of multiple years and requires the accumulation of multiple viral mutations," said evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Is the South African Variant More Dangerous than the Other Variants?
As of now, there is evidence that could tell that the South African variant or any mutated variants of SARs-CoV-2 cause more serious illness. Health experts still advise following basic health protocols, such as proper and frequent hand washing, physical distancing, and the wearing of face masks.
According to the BBC, the South African variant already dominated the Eastern and Western Cape provinces of South Africa. Other countries like Austria, Norway, the UK, and Japan have also reported the south African variant cases in their countries.
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