Amsterdam-Sana
The European Medicines Agency said today that it needs two weeks to test the effectiveness of vaccines against the mutant Omicron from the Corona virus, and that it may approve new vaccines against Omicron within three to four months if necessary.
"It is not yet known whether drugmakers need to modify their vaccines to protect against Omicron, but the agency is prepared for that possibility," said IAEA Executive Director Emer Cook, according to the British newspaper The Times.
And the companies Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson announced yesterday that they had started working on a new version of their anti-Corona vaccine targeting the mutated Omicron in the event that their vaccines were not effective in protecting against this new version of the virus.
On the other hand, the president of the pharmaceutical company Moderna ruled out that the vaccines against Covid-19 would be effective against the Omicron strain, as was the case with the Delta strain.
"The efficacy will not be at the same level ... that we had with Delta," said Resteva Bansel in an interview with the "Financial Times" published today about vaccines and addressing the new mutant.
In turn, the CEO of the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Albert Borla, confirmed that he was “confident” that the “Paxilvid” antiviral pills, which the company developed to treat people with corona, are effective against the new mutation.
And the World Health Organization confirmed yesterday that “a mutant omicron is very different and contains a high number of copies, some of which are worrying and may be linked to the possibility of escaping from the immune system and increasing transmission of infection,” explaining that the only reassuring element so far is the lack of reporting deaths associated with this mutant.
It is noteworthy that the first cases of this strain were recorded in South Africa before it spread to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, which prompted many countries to suspend flights with dozens of countries on the African continent.
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