UK minister: vaccine modified to keep up with variants

Ministers in the UK say the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will be modified to keep up with new coronavirus variants. Minister of State for Health, Edward Argar, told SKY News that he was confident that updating the vaccine and providing people with booster jabs would enable authorities to keep pace with new virus strains.

His comments came as South Africa announced it had suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn’t effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.On Sunday, developers of the vaccine said they expect to have a modified jab to cope with the South Africa coronavirus variant by autumn.More than 100 cases of the South African variant have been found in the UK.