While the progression of the Omicron variant is causing worldwide concern,
"the urgency in France is to deal with the increase in infections by
the Delta variant", the members of the Scientific Council underlined Monday at a press conference.
"Everything that will be done against Delta will be useful against Omicron"
, underlined Pr Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist and member of the board, advocating the strengthening of barrier measures (masks, physical distance, ventilation, etc.), the wide use of the test -tracer-isolate and acceleration of the vaccination campaign.
There are still great uncertainties about the dangerousness and contagiousness of the Omicron variant, the first known case of which would have appeared in South Africa on November 8 or 9. The sequencing carried out by South African scientists shows that it has a record accumulation of mutations located in key areas, likely to alter the ability of antibodies to recognize the virus. The risk of a decrease in the protection acquired from a previous infection or from the vaccine is therefore high. The extent of this loss will be known within two weeks, the time for scientists to study in the laboratory the ability of antibodies, linked to vaccines or to a previous infection, to neutralize the newcomer.
LiveOmicron variant: special flights organized to repatriate people stranded in Morocco to France
"The protection will probably be reduced, but it will not disappear completely"
, however reassured the infectious disease specialist Yazdan Yazdanpanah, specifying that the effectiveness of the immune response would depend on the quantity of antibodies circulating in the blood.
Hence the importance of relaunching their production with the injection of the third dose of RNA vaccine.
According to the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy, the emergence of the Omicron variant
“therefore reinforces the importance of the booster, which must be administered as a priority to the elderly and frail”
.
The variant has not yet been detected at this stage in France, said the Scientific Council.
Several PCR samples deemed suspicious have been sequenced since the international alert, without the Omicron variant being identified.
