MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. The existing vaccine against the novel coronavirus may have to be updated, but not reworked altogether, if the virus’ S-protein mutates, the chief specialist of the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Fyodor Lisitsin, said on the round-the-clock television news channel Rossiya-24.

"Proteins’ mutations do not require fundamental changes to the principle of vaccines’ operation," he said. "If a protein mutates, then the vaccine is complemented with a component containing the mutated protein. The vaccine will not have to be reworked fundamentally. It will be just updated," he said.

Lisitsyn said the Gamaleya center had not yet come across coronavirus mutations with changed S-protein parameters.

The chief of Russia’s consumer rights watchdog, Anna Popova, said on Tuesday that certain changes had occurred to the virus circulating in Siberia. She added, though, that the changes did not make the virus more dangerous. The watchdog’s service said that it was a virus variety already identified in Japan.

"Research is continuing," she said.