This Friday, the American biotech firm Modern announced its intention to develop a booster vaccine specific for the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, detected in South Africa and considered “of concern” by the WHO.
“Moderna will rapidly develop a candidate vaccine for a specific booster dose for the omicron variant,” the US company said in a statement.
The ad is part of a targeted strategy to work on specific booster doses for the variants of concern, according to Moderna.
“In 2020-2021, that already included the booster doses for the Delta and Beta variants,” said the laboratory, which indicated that it had “repeatedly demonstrated its ability to bring new candidates to the clinical trial phase in 60-90 days”.
“Since its inception, we have said that to combat the pandemic it is imperative to be proactive in the face of the evolution of the virus.” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel was quoted as saying in the statement.
Ómicron: the new variant
“The mutations of the Omicron variant are worrisome and for several days we have also advanced as quickly as possible to execute our strategy, in order to fight against this variant,” he added.
Potentially highly contagious and multi-mutant, the new variant raises global concern while spreading outside of South Africa, forcing the world to progressively close its borders with southern Africa.
In Europe, Belgium detected a first case. Another was identified in Hong Kong and another in Israel, in a person who returned from Malawi.
The German laboratory BioNTech, an ally of Pfizer, has said that it is studying this variant, and awaits “at the latest in two weeks” the first results of studies that will allow it to determine if it is capable of penetrating the protection of its vaccine.
It will take “several weeks” to understand the level of transmissibility and virulence of the new variant, the WHO spokesman stressed on Friday.
For the European Medicines Agency (EMA), it is “premature” to foresee an adaptation of vaccines to the omicron variant.