Moderna and other vaccines not as effective against Omicron: Moderna CEO
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Sulaiman
- . November 30, 2021
- . Update: November 30, 2021 7:47 pm
The CEO of Moderna has warned those getting vaccinated by the vaccine that they should be cautious of the latest Covid-19 variant Omicron as the vaccine is not as effective against it.
The Drugmaker said that as per his prediction, the existing vaccines are also less effective against the latest variant when compared to the earlier variants of the virus. Soon after his remark, a drastic drop in equity markets was noticed.
He also stressed that though people may assume that things are being done to provide specific vaccines, it will take a long time for the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to make variant specific vaccines.
Read | WHO warns about the new Covid-19 variant
Stéphane Bancel talked about the recent changes due to this variant with a leading daily and said that it is not fair to expect the same level of effectiveness against all the variants from the same vaccines.
“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’.” He also said that it is highly possible that the new variant speed mutations can lead to spike protein in a more threatening way than before.
There was rapid spread of the virus in South Africa and the way things worked in the country proved that the virus is highly contagious. Hence, the drug maker suggested that the available vaccines must start working on its modifications to tackle this variant.
Countries all over the world have already started imposing travel restrictions and at this point, the remarks of the drug maker confirm the cautiousness followed by the leaders of the other counties. Even the World Health Organization confirmed on Monday that the variant has a very high risk of infection surges.
