Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that the mere repetition of booster vaccines will be insufficient to prevent the emergence of variants of the new coronavirus and urged improved immunizers to curb the transmission of the disease.
“A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses” of the first vaccines “has little chance of being appropriate or viable,” the WHO Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on the composition of vaccines against the novel coronavirus said in a statement.
“Vaccines against covid-19 are needed and should be developed with a strong impact on prevention and transmission, in addition to the prevention of severe cases and deaths,” the group said.
“Pending the availability of these vaccines, and as the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolves, the composition of current covid vaccines may need to be updated to ensure that they continue to provide the levels of protection recommended by WHO against infection and disease” caused by the variants, the expert group said.
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About six weeks after the ómicron variant was identified in South Africa, data from several countries agree on two points: ómicron – which falls into the WHO category of variants of concern – is transmitted much more quickly than the delta variant – previously dominant – and, globally, seems to involve less severe forms of the disease.
However, it is not known whether this apparently lower severity is due to the characteristics of the variant or the fact that ómicron is affecting partially immunized populations, either by the vaccine or by a previous infection.
In addition, ómicron is advancing brilliantly in many countries and infections are doubling every two or three days, something that had not happened with the previous variants.
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Omicron mutations seem to allow it to reduce immunity by antibodies to the virus, so it can probably infect a significant number of vaccinated people and reinfect people who had already overcome the disease.
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