According to a World Health Organization (WHO) official, existing immunizations should still protect those who get the Omicron strain from severe Covid cases.
It comes as preliminary lab testing in South Africa suggest the new version can partially resist the Pfizer vaccine. According to the researchers, the vaccine’s antibodies had a “significant reduction” in their ability to neutralize the new strain.
Dr. Mike Ryan of the WHO, on the other hand, said there was no indication that Omicron would be better at evading vaccines than other variations.
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“We have incredibly effective vaccinations that have shown effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalization, and there’s no reason to anticipate that it wouldn’t be the same” for Omicron, according to Dr Ryan, WHO’s emergencies director.
He said initial data suggested Omicron did not make people sicker than the Delta and other strains. “If anything, the direction is towards less severity,” he said.
The new South African study – which has not yet been peer-reviewed – found the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may result in up to 40 times fewer neutralising antibodies against Omicron than against the original Covid strain.
But Omicron’s ability to escape vaccine antibodies is “incomplete”, said Prof Alex Sigal, a virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute, who led the research. He said the results, based on blood tests from 12 people, were “better than I expected of Omicron”.
Prof Sigal said vaccination, combined with previous infection, could still neutralise against the variant. That suggests boosters may bring a significant benefit.
Scientists believe previous infection, followed by vaccination or a booster, is likely to increase the neutralisation level and will probably protect people against severe disease. More data on how well the Pfizer jab works against Omicron is expected to be released in the coming days.
There is no significant data yet on how the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and other jabs hold up against the new variant.