Pharmaceutical company Pfizer sent Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) a request for emergency use of a new vaccine against Covid, this time adapted to the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The request was filed this Friday (19).
It is, according to the pharmaceutical company, a bivalent vaccine, which covers both the original Sars-CoV-2, that is, the virus that started the Covid pandemic, and the omicron variant BA.1, which quickly spread throughout the world. the world.
Despite the request for emergency use, Pfizer reaffirms that its vaccine already available has shown good levels of effectiveness and protection against hospitalizations and deaths compared to the original virus and its later variants.
According to Anvisa, the pharmaceutical company proposes to use the new bivalent vaccine as a booster dose for people over 12 years old. “For this request, the company met in advance with Anvisa areas related to the topic to present the new vaccine for Covid-19”, says the agency in a note.
The company says it is already working on new vaccine updates for the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants.
“It is worth mentioning that the contract currently in force for the supply of vaccines from Pfizer to Brazil includes the delivery of potential vaccines adapted and/or for different age groups”, says, in a note, the pharmaceutical.
The update of vaccines against Covid was something already expected by researchers in the area, considering the various mutations that have been seen in the virus over the years.
The omicron variant, especially, when it was discovered — by a Brazilian scientist, even — drew the attention of the scientific community due to the high amount of changes in the spike protein, which is used by Sars-CoV-2 to bind to our cells and invade our cells. them.
An important point is that this protein is central to the action of vaccines. Therefore, there were fears that changes in Spike’s genetic information could eventually lead to a vaccine leak.
In fact, with the variants, there was a greater escape from the immunization promoted by the immunizers, but, even so, the different doses of vaccines proved capable, to a large extent, of stopping the virus.
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