The highly mutated omicron variant has shaken the whole world and measures are being taken to combat it successfully.
There have been concerns if the already available Covid-19 vaccines are effective on this newly detected variant or not? A race has begun among these vaccine manufacturers to develop booster shots that will specifically target omicron strain.
Here are how the Covid-19 vaccine developers are planning to combat the omicron variant:
In a tweet shared by President Biden, he urges everyone that the only cure to treat omicron is to get vaccinated.
The Chief Executive of Moderna Stéphane Bancel stated that “it could take months to ship an omicron-specific vaccine.”
Moderna president Stephen Hoge stated, “the company is already working on a booster and multiple-variant vaccine targeting omicron—and floated the idea of using a higher dose of the existing vaccine depending on how much efficacy has dropped.”
Johnson & Johnson stated, “it has started work on an omicron-specific vaccine and is testing blood serum from people taking part in its booster trials to see if it can neutralize the variant.”
Mathai Mammen, the head of research and development of the J&J vaccine division stated the company is “confident” in the strong immune responses the vaccine has shown against other variants in clinical studies.
Ugur Sahin, the chief of BioNTech is very optimistic about the vaccine which is developed in collaboration with Pfizer, and said that its vaccine offers a “high level of protection against the deadly disease but it expects that the variant might be able to infect fully vaccinated people.”
AstraZeneca stated it is still counterchecking the complete impact of the newly detected omicron variant and its vaccine’s impact on it.
The shot’s developer is of the opinion that “the jab will consistently provide very high levels of protection against severe disease against new variants emerging over the past year and there is “no evidence so far that omicron is any different.”
Novavax which is relatively new in the race but is a protein-based vaccine stated that it is still evaluating the shot’s effectiveness against the omicron variant. Only after that, it will make the commercial production of the specific omicron-effective jab.
