LONDON -

The discovery of a new mutant of the Corona virus in South Africa, currently known as "Omicron", imposed on the world a new reality after it was believed that important steps had been taken in fighting the epidemic.

Countries returned to closing their airspace, with a number of governments announcing the renewal of social distancing measures and threatening a return to closure.

Like a rolling ball, fears are increasing about the new mutation of the Corona virus due to the ambiguity that pervades the scientific ranks, which are racing against time to identify the new one carried by this virus, and the effectiveness of the vaccine in dealing with it.

Al Jazeera Net asked the most popular questions about the Omicron mutant to two experts working in European laboratories that are currently working on tracking this mutant, namely Dr. Mays Absi, a specialist in virus monitoring at the British Royal University Laboratory, and an expert in pharmaceutical technology at the University of Vienna, Dr. Yasser Saber.

Dr. Mais Absi is a virologist and lab officer at Keynes College London (social networking sites)

What do we know about this mutant?

According to Dr. Mais Absi, this mutant includes variants from the most prevalent “Delta” mutator, in addition to the “Beta”, “Alpha” and “Gamma” mutants, which led to a gathering of 50 variables. , of which 30 variants on the spinal protein, compared with all the previous mutant.

Which opens the door to the possibility that we are facing a new virus.

Why all this concern about this mutant?

Dr. Absi says that the cause for concern is that laboratories have found themselves in front of a new mutant, and the speed of the advanced virus’s spread, its resistance to vaccines, and the symptoms it causes must be studied.

This is what laboratories are currently working on.

When will we know all about this mutant?

According to the expert in pharmaceutical technology, Yasser Saber, it takes a few days for laboratories to reach final conclusions about the behavior of this virus, especially its resistance to vaccines.

Currently, Saber says, laboratories draw antibodies from vaccinated people and present them to the virus to monitor their effect.

"But this is not enough, because we need days to know what its symptoms are, because the delta mutant was rapidly spreading, but its symptoms were similar to influenza, and the beta mutant had severe symptoms, but it did not spread widely."


Are the initial indicators cause for optimism?

With cautious optimism, Mays Absi answers this question by saying that the figures coming from South Africa say that 65% of the infected are unvaccinated people, and all of them have moderate symptoms, and more than 30% have received one dose of the vaccine, and they did not show serious symptoms.

The other indicator is the cases that were discovered in the Netherlands, as it took ten days before symptoms appeared, and this is a positive indicator compared to the delta mutator, whose symptoms appeared after only 3 days.

Why has the world rushed to close their airspace?

According to Dr. Yasser Saber, all countries are doing now is to gain some time until this mutant is identified, but it is certain that it has spread and will spread throughout the world.

Will the world return to closing again?

Saber and Absi agree that closure alone will not suffice. The lesson learned from the emergence of this mutation is the necessity that rich countries should not monopolize vaccines, and that the solution is to distribute vaccines to poor countries.

At a time when rich countries know a glut in available vaccines, the vaccination rate in Africa still does not exceed 10%, in addition to providing rapid examination devices that show results within minutes, not hours, to be able to quickly besiege the epicenters of the epidemic.

South Africans wait in line at a train station to receive coronavirus vaccines (Reuters)

Why did he appear in South Africa?

Dr. Yasser Saber says that South African scientists should be thanked for discovering this mutant early, because it is spread in other countries and did not discover it, but what happened is the opposite, as South Africa is blamed and accused of being the reason for its spread, and this may not encourage in the future countries On the announcement of the discovery of new mutations of the virus.

What about vaccinations?

Dr. Mais Absi revealed that the companies "pfizer", "BioNTech" and "Moderna" are currently working on testing their vaccines to deal with this new mutant, and we will know the results in the next few days.

But what is worrying is that most of the variants carried by this mutant were expressed in the spinal protein that the vaccine targets, so we may need to modify the vaccines again.

Can vaccines be manufactured for the new mutant?

Dr. Yasser Saber believes that vaccine manufacturers will be able to provide a vaccine that faces the new mutant in a period between 6 weeks and 3 months, if it appears that Omicron is resistant to the currently available vaccines.

The pharmaceutical industry expert explains this by the technology adopted in many vaccines, especially the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, which relies on the "messenger RNA" technology, or what is known as "mRNA" (mRNA), which helps to change the composition of the vaccine easily and quickly.

But he stressed at the same time that the speed of production of a new vaccine will be linked to the extent to which countries will be able to finance the manufacture of vaccines again, after they have invested huge sums to obtain a strategic stockpile of available vaccines.