Indian vaccine makers are awaiting more data to understand the behaviour of the heavily mutated Omicron variant and have started assessing the efficacy of their vaccine, sources at Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila told News18.com.
However, they are all waiting for “more data” from countries, which have detected the new strain. It may take “several weeks” to confirm whether the vaccines are effective against the new Omicron variant.
Amid growing concerns over Omicron, former Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scientist Dr Raman Gangakhedkar told News18 that vaccines may provide only partial protection against the new ‘heavily mutated’ variant of SARS-CoV-2.
On Tuesday, the chief of American vaccine maker Moderna said Covid-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against Omicron which has been labelled as “variant of concern” by the World Health Organisation last week.
“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’,” Stéphane Bancel, CEO at Moderna, told the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, top officials clarified to News18.com that the platforms and process of developing a new vaccine or tweaking the existing products are well-oiled and if required, new products could be launched quickly.
‘High Chances’ That Covaxin May Work
A senior official at Bharat Biotech — the maker of indigenous whole virion inactivated vaccine Covaxin — said there are high chances that the vaccine may work against other variants.
“Covaxin was developed against the original Wuhan variant… it has shown that it can work against other variants, including Delta. However, we still continue to conduct research over newer variants,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
Another senior official at Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of Covishield, which has been administered to a majority of Indians, said it’s “too early” to understand if Covishield will be effective against Omicron or require tweaking. “Ideally, we need to wait and watch for several weeks to gain clarity.”
According to the BBC radio’s interview of Professor Andrew Pollard, director at Oxford vaccine group who led the research of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine — known as Covishield in India — the existing vaccines should work against the new strain but that would only become apparent after more research in the coming weeks.
He said it is “too early” to be certain whether the new variant will be able to evade current vaccinations, something unlikely to be known for up to three weeks.
Echoing the similar observations, an official at Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila — the maker of India’s first DNA-based Covid-19 vaccines ZyCoVD — said the company is “closely monitoring the global data on Omicron”.
The official further said the company’s vaccine is based on “plug and play technology” as it can be easily adapted to deal with mutations in the virus. “We need to do an easy tweaking, if the situation demands it.”
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