Oxford’s Professor Andrew Pollard said it should be “entirely possible” to tweak vaccines should that be necessary to deal with new variants of the virus.
He told the Today programme: “At the moment there’s no evidence that the vaccines won’t work against a new variant but that is something which we have to look at. We can’t be complacent about this variant, or perhaps future variants.
“And so one of the really important things that science has to continue to do now as we move forwards is to monitor the viruses that are around, and to make sure that vaccines still are effective against them.
“If in the future, it was necessary to tweak the vaccines that’s entirely possible to do, but I don’t think that’s something to be concerned about today, but we can’t be complacent, we have to keep watching,”
A Covid-19 vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca has been approved for use in the UK, paving the way for mass rollout.
The jab, which has been described as a “game changer”, was given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the approval is “fantastic news” and confirmed the rollout will begin on January 4.
He told Sky News: “I am now, with this approval this morning, highly confident that we can get enough vulnerable people vaccinated by the spring that we can now see the route out of this pandemic.”
He said there would be a difficult few weeks ahead “but we also know that there is a route out of this”.
He added: “The vaccine provides that route out. We have all just got to hold our nerve over the weeks to come.”
