An emergency services worker collects Covid-19 test kits during a door-to-door mass test operation in Maidstone, UK, on Tuesday 2 February 2021.
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LONDON – The UK is scrambling to contain the spread of additional coronavirus mutations, with the more alarming variant first discovered in South Africa appearing spontaneously in different parts of the country.
The British health secretary, Matt Hancock, said that the country “has to come down hard” on the South African variant after 105 cases were reported, and 11 of these cases have nothing to do with international travel.
As such, the UK has launched an enhanced testing program for around 80,000 people living in areas where bags containing cases of the mutation have been found. Tests are presented door to door and positive cases will then be assessed to see if it is caused by the South African variant.
People in those areas have been told to consider limiting the time they spend outside their homes while health authorities scramble to prevent the spread of yet another more contagious variant. One mutation, now known as the ‘British mutation’, has already become the dominant tribe in many parts of the country.
Earlier this week, Public Health England published another technical briefing in which it warned that a handful of coronavirus cases of the variant first found in the UK had further mutated to include the E484K mutation , which was first seen in the variant from South Africa.
Mutations of any virus are normal; viruses mutate all the time. But experts and policymakers are concerned about mutations that make the virus spread much faster.
The South African variant further worried experts that they were worried that coronavirus vaccines developed in the past year would not be as effective against it; there were also concerns that the South African variant could evade antibody drugs.
Vaccination manufacturers said there was little evidence to show that their shots would be ineffective against new variants, saying they would be able to adjust their vaccines, if necessary, within a few weeks.
The British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the German biotechnology firm CureVac announced on Wednesday an agreement of 150 million euros ($ 180 million) to develop Covid vaccines that are targeted at different variants in one product. The partners hope to launch such vaccines in 2022.
The UK’s vaccination program is still gaining momentum and is on track to vaccinate its top four priority groups (over 70s, residents and staff in aged care homes, health and social care workers and the clinically extremely vulnerable), amounting to around 15 million. people by mid-February.
As of February 1, more than 9.6 million people had received a first dose of the vaccine, and just under 500,000 had received two doses, according to government data.