New Omicron variants fuel demand for update of Covid vaccines
Hyderabad: The repeated cycle of Covid reinfections and associated illness among individuals who test positive due to the new variants of Omicron has now fuelled the demand for updating the existing Covid vaccines. While the present-day Covid vaccines including the precautionary or booster doses have accorded protection from severe hospitalisations and deaths, they however have […]
Hyderabad: The repeated cycle of Covid reinfections and associated illness among individuals who test positive due to the new variants of Omicron has now fuelled the demand for updating the existing Covid vaccines.
While the present-day Covid vaccines including the precautionary or booster doses have accorded protection from severe hospitalisations and deaths, they however have not been able to prevent repeated reinfections, illness and importantly the possibility of persons having to face long-term health complications due to repeat infections.
The first generation of Covid vaccines were manufactured to fight the SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in China. However, today, the same Covid vaccines have been not able to check new variants of Omicron, which have continued to trigger multiple surges of Covid infections, although the severity and hospitalisations of the disease have been far less.
“Just like influenza vaccines, pharma companies will start manufacturing or updating the Covid vaccine depending on the prevailing dominant variant that is circulating every year. The vulnerable population will definitely benefit from the updated vaccines but I won’t recommend Omicron-based vaccines for the entire Indian population,” says AcSIR Distinguished Emeritus, Prof. Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and Director of Tata Institute of Genetics and Society (TIGS), Bengaluru, Dr R K Mishra.
On the issue updating Covid vaccines, recently the World Health Organisation (WHO) said “the emergence of variants of concerns has resulted in a rapid decline of the protection against symptomatic illness. There is therefore a need to assess whether variant-updated Covid-19 vaccines, especially to Omicron, would improve vaccine performance. Such vaccines should aim to provide even greater and more durable protection against severe disease and death, and broader protection against future variants that may be even more antigenically distant to the index virus”.
Realising the need to update the vaccines, a few days ago, the UK government became the first country to approve an updated version of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine booster that can target the original strain of Coronavirus and Omicron.
Serum Institute of India (SII), which produces Covishield, also is working on updated Covid vaccines. The CEO of SII, Adar Poonawalla was quoted in several media reports that it would take another six months for the company to launch Omicron-specific Covid vaccines.
Based on the analysis by experts tracking Covid-19, the effectiveness of present-day Covid-19 vaccines to prevent infections has dropped by at least 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
