Fauci Says Current Covid Vaccines Might Need Upgrade To Combat UK, South African Strains - UrduPoint

Existing vaccines against the coronavirus may need to be upgraded to tackle UK and South African strains, Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said Monday.

"We take them very seriously," Fauci said, asked about the new variants of COVID-19 during a session on the response to the pandemic at Davos Agenda live event.

The efficacy of the existing vaccines suggests that they "will be good against both the mutations in South Africa as well as in the UK," Fauci said.

"Having said that, this is an evolving situation, so what we need to do and are doing is already looking at making upgraded versions of the vaccine that could address both the South African as well as the UK mutation. Even though right now the vaccines seem to be able to work against them, we need to be prepared to upgrade and maybe even as boost later on or as a bivalent vaccine that goes against both the wild type and the evolving mutations," the US official added.