White House health adviser Dr Anthony
Fauci warned on Thursday that the vaccines currently available in market might
be less effective for newer strains of the coronavirus.

Fauci said at a press briefing in the
White House that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, currently being administered by
several countries around the world, could very well turn out to be not efficient
enough to battle newer strains of the coronavirus found in South Africa and
Brazil.

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As per a study published on bioRxiv
this week by scientists from three South African universities, the variant
found in South Africa, identified as the 501Y.V2 variant, is seen to be able to
escape antibodies present in certain pathways of COVID-19 treatment.

“This lineage exhibits complete
escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,”
the paper says, further adding that 501Y.V2 displays ability escape from
neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19 convalescent plasma to a substantial degree.

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“We’re following very carefully the
one in South Africa, which is a little bit more concerning, but nonetheless not
something that we don’t think we can handle,” Fauci said, summarising that a very
keen eye is being kept on it.

The variant has been found to be 50%
more infectious than the original COVID-19 strain, and has been detected in 20
countries since December.