Oxford vaccine found effective against the UK variant of COVID-19

NEW DELHI: Oxford researchers have said that the COVID-19 vaccine by the Oxford University-AstraZeneca is found to be effective against the new variant of coronavirus found in the United Kingdom.

In the past few weeks, some new variants of coronavirus have been found but the one detected in UK in November has been posing problems as it was found to spread quickly. Researchers were concerned as they didn’t know the efficacy of vaccines against the new variant, however, a number of vaccine manufacturers announced their efficacy against it. Oxford researchers have published their findings in a preprint which also described the latest analysis that vaccine results in the reduction in the duration of shedding and viral load which may translate into a reduced transmission of the disease.

Professor Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator, Oxford vaccine trail, said in a statement that results from the trails in the UK shows that the vaccine protects from the novel coronavirus as well as from the new UK variant. The result has been drawn from the analysis of samples collected from the volunteers who enrolled in the phase 2 and phase 3 trails.