Fighting the Covid-19 pandemic with booster doses of current vaccines is not a viable strategy, experts from the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday.

Also, these specialists consider "that vaccines against Covid-19 having a high impact in terms of transmission and prevention of infection, in addition to preventing serious forms of disease and death, are necessary and must be developed ".

This will limit the impact of the Covid in terms of health but also "the need for strict and large-scale health and social measures", they argue.

Data on Omicron converging on two points

"While waiting for such vaccines to become available, and as the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolves, it may be necessary to update the composition of current anti-Covid vaccines, in order to ensure that (they) continue to provide the WHO recommended levels of protection against infection and disease "caused by variants, including Omicron, the expert panel believes.

A little more than six weeks after its identification in South Africa, data from several countries converge on two points: Omicron - which falls under the WHO category of variants of concern - is transmitted much faster than the previously dominant variant, Delta, and appears to cause less severe forms of the disease overall.

"Need for more data on vaccine efficacy"

"However, there is a need to obtain more data on the effectiveness of vaccines, in particular with regard to hospitalizations, severe forms of the disease and deaths", note the experts of the WHO.

Important point: it is not known if this apparently less seriousness comes from the intrinsic characteristics of the variant, or if it is related to the fact that it strikes populations already partially immunized, by the vaccine or a previous infection.

Still, Omicron is progressing dramatically in many countries and cases are doubling every two or three days, unheard of with previous variants.

Omicron's mutations appear to allow it to reduce antibody immunity against the virus.

Consequence: it can probably contaminate a large number of vaccinees, and re-infect people previously infected with the virus.

Base vaccines "on strains (...) close to the variants in circulation"

WHO experts call for changes in the composition of vaccines to ensure they protect more against disease and continue to meet criteria set by the organization, including protection against severe forms of the Covid.

They ask in particular that the vaccines “be based on strains (…) close to the variants in circulation”.

Experts also consider it important that "vaccine manufacturers take short-term steps to develop and test vaccines against dominant variants and share this data" with the WHO.

Hope to end the pandemic this year

The organization wants to end the pandemic this year.

To achieve this, all countries would need to vaccinate 70% of their population by mid-2022, she said.

But this goal is still far from being achieved.

Globally, more than 8 billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been administered in at least 219 countries or territories, according to a count made by AFP from official sources on Tuesday.

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  • Coronavirus

  • Health

  • Vaccine

  • Omicron variant

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