Booster Doses Not Enough, We May Need 'Updated' COVID Vaccines To Fight Omicron, Other Variants
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many had said that we may never have a vaccine against it, as its development of it is a lengthy process spanning years and billions of dollars.
By the time the vaccine reaches the market, the virus which is rapidly mutating will evolve into something else, and make the drug ineffective.
This had made pharmaceutical companies reluctant to invest in research for vaccines in the past.
But the unprecedented circumstances around COVID-19 meant that a vaccine had to be developed at any cost, knowing well that it could soon become lesser or in the worst-case scenario ineffective against newer variants.
Most of the current COVID-19 vaccines, including that of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Bharat Biotech were based on the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 that first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019.
Since then several variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have emerged, including Alpha, Delta, and now Omicron.
With every new strains the efficacy of the current vaccines have reduced and as of now the only option in front of us is to get a booster dose.
However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that current Covid-19 vaccines may need to be updated if they are to provide continued protection against emerging variants, including Omicron.
WHO's Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC), a group of 18 experts, on Tuesday said that although current vaccines provide a high level of protection against severe disease and death caused by Variants Of Concern (VOC), future vaccines that can prevent infection and transmission need to be developed.
The composition of current Covid-19 vaccines may need to be updated in order to protect against the evolution of the virus.
Such updates need to be based on strains that are genetically and antigenically close to the circulating variants. They should also elicit "broad, strong, and long-lasting" responses in order to "reduce the need for successive booster doses," WHO added.
The experts have encouraged Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers to provide data on the performance of current and Omicron-specific vaccines, to help decide when changes to vaccine composition may be required.
Though all the current COVID-19 vaccine makers have vouched for the efficacy of their existing drugs, many have already announced that they are working on customised vaccines for Omicron.
In December, Pfizer and Moderna had set a goal to make a booster shot customised against the highly mutated virus in less than 100 days.
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