Scientists have discovered that those infected with 501Y.V2 have a level of protection from previous and current circulating Covid-19 variants.

During a virtual media briefing on the latest scientific results on the Covid-19 variant, Prof Tulio de Oliveira of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Informatics and Sequencing Programme (KRISP) revealed that those infected with 501Y.V2, which was discovered in December, may have immunity against reinfection.

“We detected a new variant with new multiple mutations that it less neutralises and that affected some vaccines' response and, for months, not only scientists but the whole country was hammered from this detection. One thing that we see from these new results is that the plasma collected from people infected with the variant have good neutralising activity against itself as well as the first wave virus, but actually other variants of concern.

“What it means is that people infected may have immunity against the variant and other lineages but it also means that we know that immunity can decrease over time, so in no way are we saying that these people should not vaccinate,” he said.

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