U.S. expert warns Australia about a NEW variant of Covid that's 'the most mutative' - and tells Karl Stefanovic 'unless you are triple-vaxxed' you're not protected
A new highly contagious variant of Covid-19 is the fastest mutating strain yet and three doses of vaccine will be required to protect against it, a U.S. epidemiologist has warned.
Scientists say the C.1.2 strain in South Africa has a mutation rate of 41.8 mutations per year, almost double the current global mutation rate seen in any other variant of concern so far.
The strain was first identified by scientists in South Africa in May and has since been found in England, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, Portugal Switzerland and even New Zealand.
Not a lot is yet known about C.1.2, which is yet to make its way to Australia, where there have been outbreaks of the Delta strain, chiefly in Sydney and Melbourne.
But this new strain has experts on edge, including Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC.
Dr Eric Feigl-Ding (pictured right) warned the C.1.2 varint from South Africa is mutating a lot faster than the other strains of Covid
'It's got lots of troubling mutations and it's the most mutative of all variants,' he told the Today show on Wednesday.
'It's the most genetically distanced from the Wuhan 1.0 virus. Whether or not it's the next big thing, it's not necessarily that, it's the fact that the virus is mutating so much faster than we expected.'
Dr Feigl-Ding, who is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers program, a Soros Fellowship recipient and a former Democratic Party candidate, advocated a Covid elimination strategy.
'We can't just keeping boosting the vaccines,' Dr Feigl-Ding said.
'We have to basically stop the transmission worldwide because the more bodies we give the virus, the more practice chances the virus will eventually adapt and become even more evasive or contagious.'
Australians may need to be triple-vaxxed about the latest strain (pictured Sydneysiders and police outside a vaccination hub)
He also warned two doses of the vaccine may not be enough with Israel already introducing third booster shots.'
'Unless you're triple vaxxed, you're not considered fully vaxxed. And that approach as much as it sucks, it is the reality that with the face of these new variants,' Dr Feigl-Ding said.
'Right now vaccines do work, but obviously the work against hospitalisations and deaths really well.
'But for just casual breakthrough mild infections, with Delta it's taught us that there's a lot more breakthroughs than we know and after six months it does tend to wane a little bit.
'This is why the sooner we end it, the sooner we can stop dealing with these upgrade software upgrade patches that we have do with the vaccine.
Dr Eric Feigl-Ding warned two doses of the vaccine may not be enough with Israel already introducing third booster shots (stock image)