No evidence that vaccines being produced will not work against new COVID-19 variant: Indian gov't advisor

NEW DELHI - Indian government Tuesday said COVID-19 vaccines being produced will work against new variants of COVID-19.

"There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against COVID-19 variants reported from UK or South Africa. Most vaccines do target the Spike protein, in which there are changes in the variants but vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies," Indian government's principal scientific advisor K Vijay Raghavan said during a press briefing.

"The changes in the variants are not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective."

Raghavan assured that the vaccines would be effective against COVID-19 including its new variants.

India's federal health minister Harsh Vardhan recently said COVID-19 vaccine may be available in the country during January next year.

Development of COVID-19 vaccine is still in progress.

At present, there are six COVID-19 vaccine candidates in different clinical trial stages in India.