Live updates: follow the latest news on Covid-19 variant Omicron
Covid-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as they have been against the Delta variant, the head of one of the world's largest drug makers and a producer of one of the vaccines used to tackle the pandemic has warned.
Stephane Bancel said that drug makers would likely have to tweak and adjust their vaccines to be effective against the new strain, a process that could take months.
"There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level … we had with Delta," the Moderna chief executive told the Financial Times.
"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are like 'this is not going to be good'."
Mr Bancel said the concern over Omicron was because 32 of the 50 mutations in the variant are on the protein spike that the virus uses to infect human cells. Current vaccines focus on this to provide protection.
Experts had not expected such a highly mutated variant to emerge so soon after the discovery of Covid-19.
At the weekend, Moderna's chief medical officer Paul Burton made similar comments to the company CEO as he warned that, "I think this is a very concerning virus."
"These mutations – at least 30 of them in the spike protein alone, nine of them known to be associated with immune escape, and another 11 are predicted to be associated with immune escape," Mr Burton told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
The current vaccines from companies, including Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Sinopharm are all able to help reduce the risk of severe infection and death from the previous strains of the virus, though they work less well against the more transmissible Delta variant.
Scientists are still working to determine if Omicron causes the same level of illness as previous versions of the virus, if it can evade the immunity provided by vaccines and previous infections, and if it will be able to outcompete the existing strains as the pathogen continues to circulate throughout the world.
Mr Bancel said that it was a matter of logistics and timing to get tweaked jabs ready in large quantities.
“[Moderna] and Pfizer cannot get a billion doses next week. The maths doesn’t work. But could we get the billion doses out by the summer? Sure,” he said.
He predicted Moderna could make two to three billion doses next year but that it would be risky to completely change all production to focus on this new variant when others could emerge or are already in circulation.
Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said they could bring out a vaccine that targets Omicron within 100 days if needed.
However, Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb said, "There’s a reasonable degree of confidence in vaccine circles that [with] at least three doses … the patient is going to have fairly good protection against this variant.”
The World Health Organisation has said that the Omicron variant, which was first detected in South Africa, carries a "very high" risk of infection surges even though doctors say that the symptoms they are seeing are strange but less severe than other variants.
Omicron has triggered global alarm, with border closures casting a shadow over a nascent economic recovery from a two-year pandemic.
The WHO has urged countries to use a "risk-based approach to adjust international travel measures" as countries impose curbs and new restrictions.
The global curbs have, however, triggered concerns about vaccine inequality.
"The people of Africa cannot be blamed for the immorally low level of vaccinations available in Africa – and they should not be penalised for identifying and sharing crucial science and health information with the world," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.
India, home to the world's largest vaccine maker, has approved supplies of Covid-19 vaccines to many African countries and said it stands ready to "expeditiously" send more.
China too has pledged a billion doses to the continent.
Additional reporting by agencies
