The highly transmissible, possibly deadlier variant of Covid-19 that is making vaccines weak was detected in southern England at the end of last year. The same strain is showing signs of further mutation, UK scientists warned.
Tests conducted on samples of the Kent variant, named after the region in England where it was first detected, show a mutation, called ‘E484K’, already detected in the South Africa and Brazil variants.
There are fears that this mutation could evade the immune system and that the vaccines currently being administered may prove less effective against these further mutating variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
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The findings form part of yet-to-be peer-reviewed results of research at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID), University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) COVID-19…