UK 'Worried' About Indian COVID-19 Variant - Health Secretary

The UK government is "worried" about a variant of COVID-19 first identified in India that is believed to be more transmissible than the original coronavirus, but ministers remain confident that vaccines should be effective against new strains, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2021) The UK government is "worried" about a variant of COVID-19 first identified in India that is believed to be more transmissible than the original coronavirus, but ministers remain confident that vaccines should be effective against new strains, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Tuesday.

"We are worried about the Indian variant," Hancock told the Times Radio broadcaster.

During a later appearance on the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster, the health secretary said that the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use should be effective against the virus strain first identified in India, although added that concerns remained over their effectiveness against the South African variant.

"We have some degree of confidence that the vaccine works effectively against the so-called Indian variant, and then against the South African variant we are a little bit more worried, but we don't have full data on those yet," Hancock remarked.

The health secretary's comments come one day after experts at the World Health Organization defined the Indian strain, named B.1.617, as a "variant of concern."

The UK government placed India on its so-called red list in late April, effectively banning all travel between the two countries, following the emergence of the new virus strain that has been blamed for a rapid surge in new cases in India.

In an update posted on Tuesday morning, health officials in India confirmed that 329,942 new positive tests for COVID-19 had been registered in the country over the preceding 24 hours.