Omicron: Can't Rule Out Existing Vaccines Becoming Ineffective, Says COVID Task Force Chief

Can a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine offer protection against the Omicron variant? if yes, should it be the same or a different vaccine? How much protection does two shots of COVID-19 vaccine offer against Omicron? Should we re-vaccinate the entire population? - these are some of the questions people and scientists around the world have been asking for the past few weeks, as the Omicron strain is spreading across the world. And, till now no one seems to have an answer.

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Concerns galore

One of the biggest concerns, when it comes to the Omicron variant is will it make the current vaccines which were developed for earlier strains, ineffective.

India's COVID Task Force chief VK Paul said there is a potential scenario that "our vaccines may become ineffective in emerging situations" and emphasised the need to be ready to modify the vaccines as per requirement.

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He also hoped that COVID in India is possibly moving in the direction of endemicity, where there is a low or moderate level of transmission going on.

What he said

"We have experienced Delta shock and now the Omicron shock... there is a potential scenario that our vaccines may become ineffective in emerging situations in the wake of the last three weeks of living with Omicron, we have seen how such doubts have come up, some of them may be genuine, we still don't have the final picture," he said.

Speaking at an event organised by industry body CII, Paul also emphasised the need for having vaccine platforms that are adaptable quickly with the changing nature of the variants.

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"How soon can we create a vaccine which is using the same platform, but is now targeted to the variant of the day... we may have to think about how we go about doing it.

"...moving from the rapid development of generic vaccine, we have to be ready to be able to have a situation where resiliently we are able to modify the vaccines as require(d). This may not happen every three months but this could happen every year perhaps. Therefore, that needs to be factored in," Paul said.

COVAXIN working on new strain

Recently, Dr Krishna Ella Chairman and MD, Bharat Biotech had said that his company is working on COVAXN for the new strain.

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Earlier, ICMR had said that COVAXI may offer better protection than other vaccines against Omicron as it is a virion-inactivated vaccine ¡°covers the entire virus and can work against this highly mutated new variant¡±.

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