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LONDON: Scientists at Oxford are preparing to rapidly produce new versions of their vaccine to fight the more contagious emerging variants of COVID-19 found in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, the Telegraph reported on Wednesday 20 January.
The team behind the vaccine from Oxford and AstraZeneca is undertaking feasibility studies to reconfigure the technology, the journal said, citing confirmation from the University of Oxford.
Scientists were working to estimate how quickly they could reconfigure their ChAdOx vaccine platform, according to the report.
AstraZeneca returned to Oxford for comment. An Oxford spokesperson said the university is carefully evaluating the impact of the new variants on vaccine immunity and evaluating the processes necessary for the rapid development of tuned COVID-19 vaccines if necessary.
READ: New variants of COVID-19: Do virus strains from UK and South Africa pose a danger to Singapore?
READ: Previous COVID-19 infection may offer less protection against South Africa’s new variant
Separately, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the national drug regulator would be ready and able to approve new versions of COVID-19 vaccines designed to counter new variants of the coronavirus that may appear.
Recent lab tests have indicated that the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech is likely to work against the UK variant which is spreading around the world.
BioNTech has announced its intention to publish a more detailed analysis of the likely effect of its vaccine on the South African variant in a few days.
AstraZeneca, Moderna, and CureVac are also testing whether their respective shots will protect against the fast-release variants.
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