Professor Salim Abdool Karim. Image via: flickr
As we gear up for a historic vaccine rollout, we want to know how effective it will be against the new variant. Here’s what you need to know.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim. Image via: flickr
After the pandemic hit, we looked towards vaccines and now that they’re approaching, we obviously want to take comfort in the fact that they will be effective, especially against the new variant 501Y.V2. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, who has been guiding us through two waves of COVID-19, provided an update on the new variant on Monday 18 January. During the update, he said there is no evidence, as yet, that the vaccines are effective against the new variant. However, he also said there is no need to change our vaccine strategy.
When asked if there is any evidence to suggest that the vaccines are effective against the new variant, Karim said “I’m sorry to tell you, not yet”.
“Many many scientists across the world are working on this. I mean, we have direct communication with several of them and we don’t yet have an answer. We’re expecting an answer pretty soon and there’s much to speculate on this but we want to see the actual data, it’s not yet available” he added.
When asked if the above information should make us consider changing our vaccine approach, Karim said “in my view, the answer is no”.
“Not at this stage, not to the evidence we have at this point. Vaccines that we see with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at 95% efficacy are among the most effective vaccines that we have for any disease. Take for example the measles vaccine, this is comparable with that, one of our most successful vaccines,” he said.
“So we’re looking at pretty high efficacy vaccines and they achieve a critically important goal which is they reduce clinical illness and hospitalisation,” he added.
According to Karim, there are some unknowns regarding the vaccine that may take a while to be resolved. He listed them as the following;