Drosten sure: Live vaccination will be "next milestone" in the fight against Corona
Created: 01/18/2022, 11:15 am
By: Richard Strobl
Lothar Wieler (l), President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), and Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute for Virology, Charité Berlin, talk to each other after a press conference on the current situation in the corona pandemic.
(Archive) © Michael Kappeler/dpa
Christian Drosten sees the Omikron wave as an opportunity.
In the long term, he sees the “next milestone” against the corona pandemic in live vaccination.
Berlin – The corona numbers in Germany are currently increasing rapidly.
Nevertheless, Charité virologist Christian Drosten sees the new Omikron variant as a long-term opportunity and gives a hopeful pandemic forecast.
He also talks about what he sees as the “next milestone” in research and in the fight against the virus.
Drosten sees Omikron as an opportunity
In an interview with the
Tagesspiegel
, Drosten was “completely sure” that life would be like it was before the pandemic for the foreseeable future.
It wouldn't take that long anyway, he said.
The new Omikron variant can now be seen as a real "opportunity".
After all, this is no longer a matter of “fitness leaps” as was the case with the predecessor mutations Delta or Alpha, but rather an immune escape variant.
Delta was still much better adapted to humans than its predecessors.
Omicron, on the other hand, is now a reaction to the increased immunity in the population.
Drosten sure: live vaccination will be "next milestone"
In his surprisingly optimistic prognosis, Drosten almost got enthusiastic when he was asked by the
Tagesspiegel
what would be important next in terms of research. "The answer is clear: we need a live vaccination," said Drosten. This could be a classic vaccination with a weakened virus or a modern variant of it. “You would have to put it in your nose and then trigger mucosal immunity. That would be much better protection against transmission, it would be the next milestone, ”explains Drosten.
Diligent research is already being done in this direction, explains Drosten.
There are already phase 1 and 2 studies on this.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find unvaccinated but willing test subjects for the studies who have not yet contracted the virus.
(rjs)
