It is not yet possible to confirm that vaccine booster neutralizes microns, says WHO

It is still not possible to be sure that three doses of vaccine against Covid-19 neutralize the omicron variant of the new coronavirus, said the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday (8). According to the organization, there is an expectation of having better evidence on the effectiveness of the vaccine booster in the coming weeks with the development of new research.

The announcement comes on the same day that BioNTech and Pfizer say that three doses of their product have neutralized the new variant in laboratory testing. According to the companies, two doses resulted in significantly lower neutralizing antibodies against the new strain, but a third dose increased neutralizing antibodies.

Omicron has already been identified in 57 countries, including Brazil, according to new data from the WHO.

The new strain raised the alert of the international community because of its large number of mutations.

Of most concern are the 30 present in protein S, which are used by the virus to enter human cells. It is from these proteins that current vaccines are produced and, therefore, there are suspicions that they could be less efficient against this strain.

In addition to Pfizer and BioNTech, other companies are already developing studies targeting a third dose of immunizers against omicron. Moderna, for example, plans to produce a specific dose for omicron, which could be ready in March 2022.

Sinovac, the Chinese company that makes Coronavac, is another drugmaker that schedules an updated version of the omicron vaccine in up to three months.

Even with these suspicions, the WHO has already pointed out that the available immunization agents are still extremely important to stop the transmission of the virus and prevent deaths caused by Covid-19.

In this Wednesday’s interview, all the organization’s experts asked countries to increase their vaccination rates in order to avoid more critical scenarios of the pandemic.

Other open points are the transmissibility and the severity of the variant. Preliminary evidence indicates that it is more contagious, and Anthony Fauci, a respected American scientist, has said that omicron can surpass even the transmission level of delta.

However, other evidence suggests that the variant is not capable of generating more critical cases of Covid-19, and does not have a major impact on the increase in the disease’s mortality rate.

For now, the protective masks must be reinforced to block transmission of the variant, experts say. In São Paulo, there were plans to make the use of masks more flexible for December 11, but the state government decided to keep the equipment mandatory in open spaces.

WHO also reinforced the importance of avoiding crowding and increasing the number of tests and sequencing in order to have a better monitoring of the omicron situation around the world.