A team of scientists behind the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine say a new jab designed to tackle mutant strains will be available by October.
Professor Andrew Pollard said that work to redesign the existing vaccine is ‘very, very quick’ and will involve a smaller clinical trial than the original.
Speaking at a media briefing hosted by AstraZeneca, the Oxford Vaccine Group’s director said he believed that the new inoculation will be ready by autumn.
It comes after studies have shown that variants of coronavirus with the worrying E484K mutation could make vaccines less effective, though they are still expected to offer good protection against illness and severe disease.
The mutation is found in the South African variant of the virus, which has prompted surge-testing in eight postcode areas of England where community transmission is feared.
It has also been detected in Bristol in the variant first identified in Kent, and in Liverpool in a new variant of the original pandemic strain.
Prof Pollard said: "I think the actual work on designing a new vaccine is very, very quick because it's essentially just switching out the genetic sequence for the spike protein, for the updated variants.
"And then there's manufacturing to do and then a small-scale study.
"So all of that can be completed in a very short period of time, and the autumn is really the timing for having new vaccines available for use rather than for having the clinical trials run."
Sir Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca, said: "Our ambition is to be ready for the next round of immunisations that may be necessary as we go into next winter.
“That's what we're aiming for."
He continued: "We're very much aiming to try and have something ready by the autumn. So, this year."
Prof Pollard said it is likely that clinical trials on new vaccines for dealing with the variants of Covid-19 will involve "hundreds" of people at the most.
"That's a discussion which is ongoing with regulators about exactly what the data package is that they would need," he said.
"The reason why it's such a small number is because, with an updated vaccine, the question is whether immune responses still look the same but against the new variants as they emerge.
"We don't need to run studies on a large scale to prove efficacy. And so that's why they're much quicker and much smaller to conduct."
Prof Pollard also told the briefing that social distancing needs to continue for now, despite Oxford's analysis showing a substantial effect on transmission.
Earlier, he said vaccines in general should still protect against severe disease.
"I think one of the things that we know about these new variants is that they are making changes that allow them to avoid human immune responses so that they can still transmit," he told BBC Breakfast.
"So that does mean that it's likely over time that the virus will find ways of adapting and continue to pass between people despite natural infection and immunity after that or from the vaccines.
"That doesn't mean that we won't still have protection against severe disease, because there's lots of different ways in which our immune system fights the virus - it is much more about the virus being able to continue to survive, rather than for it to cause harm to us."
