The vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca group retains a "
similar effectiveness
" against the highly contagious variant which appeared in the south of England and has since been found in dozens of countries, said Friday February 5 the researchers in charge of the project.
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Analyzes of clinical trials conducted between October 1 and January 14 in the United Kingdom showed "
protection against similar symptomatic infections despite a lower amount of neutralizing antibodies
," the British university said in a statement.
"
The vaccine not only protects against the original pandemic virus, but also protects against the new variant B117 which caused the resurgence of the disease from the end of 2020 in the UK
", explained Professor Andrew Pollard, Oxford vaccine trial leader, cited in the statement.
Oxford, however, did not provide any data on the other South African and Brazilian variants that cause concern.
In recent days, British health authorities have also been concerned about a new mutation of the English variant having points in common with the South African variant.
The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and that of Pfizer / BioNTech are the two currently administered in the United Kingdom, subject to severe containment after suffering an outbreak of contaminations attributed to the more contagious variant which has appeared in the south of England.
Almost 10.5 million people have received a first dose of one of these vaccines.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved by several other countries and by the European Union.
But some countries have preferred to recommend it only for those under 65, for lack of sufficient data on older people.