The head of drugmaker Moderna said he believes the Omicron variant is “highly infectious” and it is “highly possible” the effectiveness of vaccines is decreasing – adding that boosters may need a “double” dose to provide the best protection.
Chief executive of the COVID vaccine creator Stephane Bancel said the new strain is overtaking Delta in South Africa at a faster rate than previously seen.
“It took around four months for Delta to take over Beta, and it seems it’s taking just a couple weeks for this new variant to take over Delta,” he told CNBC.
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The new mutation – first identified by researchers in southern Africa – is believed to be already present in most countries.
Albert Bourla, chief executive of rival vaccine maker Pfizer/BioNTech said he was “very confident” the jab works against all known mutations of coronavirus, including Omicron.
However, he said his firm has already started making a new vaccine against the variant, adding: “Within 95 days basically we will have a new vaccine.”
Both stressed that more data is needed to fully understand whether B.1.1.529 is more contagious or resistant to vaccines.
Mr Bancel said: “Given the large number of mutations, it is highly possible that the efficacy of the vaccine, all of them, is going down. But we need to wait for the data to know if this is true, and how much is it going down.”
The high number of mutations on the protein spike the virus uses to infect human cells could mean existing vaccines need to be modified.
He said a higher dose booster jab would be the “first line of defence”.
More data needed
“We’ve lowered the dose of a booster of a current vaccine, and so we have a lot of safety data showing that we could go back to a higher microgram dose at double the dose of a current vaccine, which should provide better…
Source : skynews
