Johannesburg, Feb 7(UNI) According to reports the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford offers only limited protection against the South African variant of the coronavirus, a spokesman for the British drugmaker said here on Sunday.

The statement came after the Financial Times reported that the vaccine failed to provide protection against the mild and moderate disease caused by the South African variant of the virus, Aljazeera reported.

The newspaper cited data from a trial conducted by South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Oxford, the findings of which are due to be published on Monday.

The FT noted that none of the more than 2,000 mainly healthy and young participants in the trial had been hospitalised or died. However, the findings are yet to be peer-reviewed.

However, the company said that it believed its vaccine could protect against severe disease, given that the neutralising antibody activity was equivalent to that of other COVID-19 vaccines that have demonstrated protection against severe disease.

UNI XC ACL JAL 1712