Chief Medical Officer of Moderna, Paul Burton, suspects that the new coronavirus variant, Omicron may elude the current vaccines. He says that reformulated shots may be available in early 2022.
On an Andrew Marr Show “on the BBC, Burton said that they would know about the current vaccine efficacy in protecting in the next few weeks.
“If we are to make a brand-new vaccine and make them available in large quantities, then it can happen by early 2022.,” he said. According to Burton, the Moderna platform on which the mRNA vaccines are being developed can move quickly.
As per Bloomberg news, Moderna, which is based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, mobilized hundreds of staff on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., as news of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spread.
The biotech company CMO thinks that protection from the vaccine will continue to exist depending on when it was administered, but the advice for the new population is to take the current vaccines.
He said, “if people who have not yet taken the vaccination, they should get vaccinated. This is a dangerous-looking variant of the virus, but I think we have enough ammunition tools to fight it now.“
Many countries are rushing to clamp down travel from South Africa from where the strains of Omicron originated. Fears are that it could aggravate the winter situation in the northern hemisphere and undermine the global economic recovery. The new fears have sent signals of risk eversion to the global markets on Friday and continued till Sunday as the middle east market was open during the weekend.
In a statement on Friday, Moderna said that it was working quickly to test the new vaccine while studying two booster types.
Moderna has had a comprehensive strategy since early 2021 to anticipate new variants of coronavirus. The company has repeatedly demonstrated that it can conduct trials of new candidates in 60 to 90 days.
