Are Pfizer and Moderna going to change their vaccine to Omicron variant (quickly)?

The Omicron variant pushes pharmaceutical companies to update the contents of their vials faster than expected. As the withdrawal campaign is in full swing in some parts of the West, the Govt 19 vaccines are facing a highly contagious new strain and many mutations.

Globally, the B.1.1.529 variant is causing concern as it spreads beyond South Africa, prompting the world to gradually close its borders to South Africa. “There were less than 10 mutations in this protein in the previous variants and the Omigran variant is more than 30. This is worrying, suggesting that this variant should reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine against this new variant,” the virologist pointed out. Etienne Decroly, on L’Express.

Moderna in a specific booster dose

According to the expert, it is necessary to anticipate the question of the vaccine, because the current serum is compatible with the original strain of the virus, the latter has developed a lot since 2020. Therefore the vaccine loses its effectiveness. Forms of the disease. “In order to better control the spread of infection and virus, it would be best to adapt the booster shots to the current variants,” Etienne DeCroley continued.

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Some labs are getting ready: US company Moderna announced on Friday that it intends to develop a specific booster dose for the new Omigron variant of Covit-19, which is considered “worrying” by the WHO. “Moderna will quickly develop a vaccine candidate for a specific booster dose for the Omigran variant,” the U.S. company said in a statement.

This announcement, according to Moderna, is part of a strategy to work on specific booster doses for anxiety variants. “In 2020-2021, it already includes booster doses for delta and beta variants,” the lab said, adding that “it has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to move new candidates to the level of clinical trials in 60-90 days”.

“We have said from the beginning that we need to be proactive in tackling the evolution of the virus in order to fight the epidemic,” Moderna boss Stephen Boncel was quoted as saying in a statement. “The mutations in the Omicron variant are worrying, and we are moving quickly to implement our strategy to combat this variation for several days,” he added.

Pfizer reads Omigran

Other industries are also operating. BioNTech, a German laboratory affiliated with Pfizer, said it would study the new variant and “wait two weeks” for the first results of studies to determine whether it can escape vaccine protection. A WHO spokesman said Friday that it would take “several weeks” to understand the spread of the new variant and the extent of the virus.

According to a spokesman for Friday, the two laboratories were “prepared several months in advance to adjust their vaccine within six weeks and deliver the first dose within 100 days.” In fact, Pfizer has confirmed that on a daily basis Release, November 25, He has been testing the updated version of “since August” [son] Vaccine, which targets the complete spike protein of the delta variant.

Team Astrogenogen He, too, split a statement on the issue, declaring that “in close collaboration with the University of Oxford, it has developed a vaccine site that allows it to respond quickly to emerging new strains.” A British scientist who led research on the vaccine said on Saturday that a new serum could be developed “very quickly” against the Omigran variant.

Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, considered it “extremely unlikely” that this new variant would spread strongly among people vaccinated with the delta variant “as we saw last year”. But in doing so, he told the BBC, “it could act very quickly,” because “the process of developing a new vaccine is getting better and better.”

For its part, the European Pharmaceuticals Agency (EMA) is not so keen on the idea of a quick update. The European Comptroller and Auditor General said on Friday that plans to modify the vaccine for the new variant of Covit-19, first detected in South Africa, were “premature” because many countries had suspended or banned flights from South Africa.

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The European Pharmaceuticals Association (EMA) says more details are needed to see if a strain containing “multiple mutations” can escape the four vaccines currently approved in the European Union. “We are closely monitoring the newly released B.1.1.529 variant, which contains several mutations in the peak protein of Covit-19,” the EMA, headquartered in Amsterdam, concluded in a statement to AFP.