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Daily Telegraph 5.1.21  “VACCINE MAY HAVE TO BE MODIFED TO DEAL WITH SOUTH AFRICAN VARIANT” by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor.

The South African variant of Covid has 3 mutations in important genes.   One, the N501Y mutation has already been found in the UK variant & could be responsible for it being so infectious.  But the South African version carries 2 more mutations - E484K & K417N that are absent in the UK version & make it far more worrying.   “These 2 mutations may interfere more with vaccine effectiveness than in the UK variant” said Dr Julian W Tang, honorary associate professor & clinical virologist at Leicester University.  However, Chris Whitty & Patrick Vallance said that if these new strains became more dominant in Britain it could take about 6 weeks for both vaccines to be modified to be more effective against this variant.