Vaccine will protect against new variant: Principal Scientific Advisor

Govt will initiate studies to see relationship between new strain and seriousness of the disease; there have been 17 changes in spike protein of the virus, of which eight are key

Existing vaccines for Covid-19 will protect against the new variants, the government said on Tuesday, as there is no evidence to prove otherwise.

The changes in the variants, reported in the UK and South Africa, were not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan told reporters.

India has set up the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium of ten government labs which would test and sequence samples from international travellers as well samples of those being admitted to hospitals. The government will initiate studies to see the relationship between the new variant and the seriousness of the disease.

Raghavan termed