An infectious disease expert says WA needs to tighten it’s quarantine protocols after it was revealed the AstraZeneca vaccine only offers ‘minimal protection’ against the South African variant.

South Africa has paused the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine, after a small study found the jab is not very effective against mild cases of the variant.

Dr Clay Golledge told 6PR’s Liam Bartlett it could become an issue if the South African variant takes hold in Australia.

“It is concerning, and particularly more concerning if the South African strain becomes the more dominant strain in Australia.”

AstraZeneca hope to have a modified vaccine to deal with South African strain by September, but Dr Golledge says WA needs to tighten it’s quarantine protocols in the meantime.

“What is going to be important is to make sure this is not the predominate strain coming into Australia,” he said.

“We need to look at prevention, prevention of travellers coming in with this.”

The infectious disease expert says it shouldn’t come as a surprise that multiple vaccine variations may need to be developed.

“I still think it’s valuable we utilise the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first instance,” he said.

“AstraZeneca is not really designed to be a vaccine that we use for years and years in time, not in it’s current formulation anyway.”

More than 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are due to be rolled-out in coming months, and the federal government are confident it will work against severe cases of the virus

“As many people as possible should have the vaccine, don’t think you are getting a B-grade vaccine by getting AstraZeneca,” Dr Golledge said.

Click play to hear the full interview.

(Photo: iStock by Getty Images.)