As per a report published in Independent the American vaccine maker Moderna is developing a new vaccine against the South African variant as a precautionary step, while it remains effective to the other mutated forms of the Covid-19 especially the UK variant.
The South African variant called 501.V2 is reportedly showing sixfold reduction in the antibody response, while raising the concerns of fading immunity with the time. As per Moderna, even though the antibodies remain above the level of minimum that are expected to be protective but the company wants to develop it as an insurance policy.
Although Moderna has become the first company to publicly announce its plans to develop vaccine for the new variants, the Oxford team is actively working to develop new versions of its own vaccine without waiting to find out their efficiency on the Covid variants.