As the world frets over the need for an Omicron-specific vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), several public health professionals and infectious disease experts interviewed by Nature have had mixed views on the matter. According to medics and researchers interviewed by the journal, it is unclear whether the scientific community will need to devote significant time and effort to developing a vaccine specifically against the highly circulating SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain of the coronavirus, as the world’s Cases may flatten out before injections are approved in most places, or the next strain may be completely different from the current one, requiring again a different vaccine composition.
Debate: Why develop an Omicron-specific vaccine?
The earliest Covid-19 vaccines were based on the original SARS-CoV-2 strain first discovered in Wuhan, China. But since then, the coronavirus has undergone multiple mutations; the Omicron strain, which is capable of frequent transmission, contains more than 30 mutations in key regions of its genome, making it quite different from the original strain.
Given the changes in Omicron’s biology compared to the original virus, and the fact that the new strain is becoming the dominant variant in several countries around the world, the researchers came up with the idea of updating the vaccine’s composition.
Also, the protection provided by the booster is not permanent. While the UK health safety agency says a third dose of the vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 92% and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it is 90% effective in preventing hospitalisations, everyone agrees that the protection is driven by boosters The firing also waned quickly. The UK study showed that the effectiveness against hospitalisation dropped from 92% to 83% just 10 weeks after the third dose was administered.
Notably, updated systems for existing vaccines such as influenza viruses already exist. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a team of experts that meets twice a year to recommend ingredients for the next season of vaccines, making it easier for health regulators in countries to follow up. There are also more than 100 laboratories and five WHO collaborating centres around the world conducting year-round surveillance, testing thousands of virus samples and predicting how the next influenza strain will develop.
However, there are some complications with the influenza vaccine model that replicates the coronavirus, especially given the Omicron variant.
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