The head of the genetic surveillance in the UK predicts that the coronavirus strain identified in the UK could become the most dominant strain in the world.
Professor Sharon Peacock told BBC News that the variant has taken over the UK and will most likely affect the whole world over time. She added that her work concerning the variants of the virus could be useful for at least 10 years.
The UK variant of the virus has already been detected in over 50 countries across the world. The variant was initially detected in September 2020 in South East England. It spread rapidly over the course of a few months, and was the main reason new lockdown rules were implemented across the UK at the beginning of the year.
Professor Peacock, Director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, said: "What's really affected us at the moment is transmissibility."
"Once we get on top of the virus or it mutates itself out of being virulent - causing disease - then we can stop worrying about it. But I think, looking in the future, we're going to be doing this for years. We're still going to be doing this 10 years down the line, in my view," she added.
The vaccines in use now were made to withstand earlier versions of the coronavirus, but scientists feel that they will still work against new variants as well. However, they suspected they may not work as well.
Professor Peacock added that the vaccines used in the UK seem to be working well against the existing variants.
The Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium analyzes 30,000 positive tests everyday. 5% to 10% of tests that are positive are randomly selected for genome analysis.
Professor Peacock explained that only a small amount of variants possess special features. The features make them a lot more transmissible, and allow them to escape the body’s immune response. After vaccination, they may also have the potential to cause severe disease.
"These are the things we are looking out for. I'd say it happens vanishingly rarely but we have to be on the lookout for it," she added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine, including countries that are affected by new variants of the coronavirus. The vaccine was previously met with quite a lot of controversy regarding how effective it could be when tackling newer variants. The public were also skeptical about whether the elderly could receive inoculation and how often the doses should be administered.
Data from trials conducted in South Africa show that the vaccine doesn’t offer a lot of protection against a newer variant in the region, which has managed to avoid immunity from vaccines and infections in the past.
The WHO’s director of immunization, Dr Katherine O’Brien said that the South African trials and study did not have enough data, and was inconclusive. She added that it was plausible that the vaccine would be able to tackle severe disease.
Scientists at Oxford expect the vaccine to be able to prevent serious illness from the coronavirus, and predict that it will reduce the number of patients who will require treatment at the hospital.
Britain believed the vaccines were effective against variants that are circulating in the UK.
Earlier, Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator on the Oxford Vaccine trial said: "Data from our trials of the ChAdOx1 vaccine in the United Kingdom indicate that the vaccine not only protects against the original pandemic virus, but also protects against the novel variant, B.1.1.7, which caused the surge in disease from the end of 2020 across the UK.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson requested everyone who has not taken the coronavirus vaccine to “come forward.” The UK government aims to administer the vaccine to 15 million people by 15 February.