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Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 04 Jan 2021
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London: A leading scientist has warned that the vaccines might not work against the South African variant of the coronavirus.
Sir John Bell, a professor of medicine at Oxford University who helped develop its jab, has said he is more worried about it than the UK variety.
"The mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein," he told Times Radio as quoted by Metro.
"My gut feeling is the vaccine will be still effective against the Kent strain," he said.
Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at @UniofOxford says the South African variant of coronavirus is more worrying than the Kent one "by some margin". He added a different vaccine could probably be made in 4-6 weeks if needed.@GloriaDePiero | @tnewtondunn pic.twitter.com/feewplbbf0
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) January 3, 2021
"I don’t know about the South African strain – there’s a big question mark about that," he said.