Existing Vaccines Still Work on New Covid-19 Variant
The World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Dr Mike Ryan said there was no sign Omicron would be better at evading vaccines than other variants. It comes as the first lab tests of the new variant suggest it can partially evade the Pfizer jab.
Researchers say there was a “very large drop” in how well the vaccine’s antibodies neutralised the new strain.
He said initial data suggested Omicron did not make people sicker than the Delta and other strains. “If anything, the direction is towards less severity,” he said.
More data on how well the Pfizer jab works against Omicron is expected to be released in the coming days. There is no significant data yet on how the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and other jabs hold up against the new variant.
Omicron is the most heavily mutated version of coronavirus found so far.
It was first identified in South Africa, where there is now a surge in the number of people catching Covid multiple times.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said early signs suggested Omicron could be more transmissible than the current Delta strain.
But Omicron’s ability to cause severe disease is not yet clear.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said early evidence suggests Omicron could be more transmissible but less severe. There have been more than 267 million cases and more than five million deaths around the globe since the pandemic started in 2020, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Neutralising antibodies – which latch on to the virus to stop it infecting our cells – are just one part of the immune response to Covid.
Source-BBC
