Despite the lack of data, the scientific community believes that the vaccines will contain the Ômicron variant (Credit: SP State Government)
Gaining traction in the world, the Ômicron variant of Covid-19 is still little known by the scientific community, as it was discovered in South Africa less than 3 weeks ago and data around the mutation are still initial. Experts, however, already point out that vaccines, including booster doses, are the best weapon so far against this and other variants of Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Raquel Stucchi, an infectious disease professor at Unicamp and consultant to the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases (SBI), reminds us that it is crucial to maintain an immunization interval with booster doses every 6 months, at most 9 months. Thus, the antibodies remain active and prepared to fight a new Covid-19 invasion of the human body.
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Since last month, the Ministry of Health of Brazil is adopting an interval of application of booster doses of 5 months. This means that you can already take a booster dose (in this case, the third dose) if that period has already expired. For those who took the single dose of Janssen, an immunizing agent that underwent changes in the package insert, and was adapted to contain new variants, the second dose can be applied after 2 months of the first dose.
It is worth remembering that local vaccination campaigns need to keep pace with the national pace. São Paulo, for example, is a state that is in line with federal guidelines, but other regions still skate on the first dose of their inhabitants.
This Wednesday (7), the Health Secretary of the United Kingdom, Sajid Javid, issued the same understanding on the 6-month interval and said that there is a possibility that the vaccines are less effective against Ômicron. However, they must protect the infected from evolving into more serious conditions. “Our best form of defense is still our vaccines,” he said.
This view is similar to that of Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, the vaccine’s developer with Pfizer. In an interview with Dow Jones, he indicated that even as more people end up infected, the antibodies in vaccinated people should help fight the variant. “The plan remains the same: speed up the administration of a third booster dose,” he said, who urged people not to panic over Ômicron.
How effective are vaccines against the new variant?
This is a question that Pfizer, Janssen, Moderna and AstraZeneca – pharmacists with vaccines developed against covid-19 and its variants – are trying to answer. The companies have already announced that they are researching ways to adapt their immunizers and understand the effectiveness against the new strain.
Israel’s Ministry of Health has published a report this tuesday (30) indicating a possible efficacy of Pfizer against Ômicron. Pfizer’s combat effectiveness rate against the common virus averages 95%, but in the Israeli report this rate has dropped to 90% against Ômicron. The possibility of the vaccine helping to prevent severe symptoms is 93%.
These data still need to be reviewed by the scientific community, but they already point to good results, according to Raquel Stucchi. She cites an apparent disagreement between the Modern, which yesterday indicated a possible need to manufacture a new vaccine against Ômicron, and Pfizer’s preliminary data on Israel, but he believes this is not negative.
“Despite this counterpoint between Moderna and Pfizer, it appears that vaccines will remain effective,” she commented.
For the specialist, the low vaccine coverage in South Africa, where the variant was detected, is the main problem for the real reading of the virus’s infectious potential. And she warns of exactly the same point in Brazil, since more developed states are having the vaccination campaign in full swing, but poorer regions still have a low incidence of vaccinated among the population.
“Brazil is celebrating a little more than 60% of complete vaccination, but today what counts is looking at the percentage of people vaccinated 6 months ago. This vaccination is still very irregular, as we have northern states, for example, with 30% complete vaccination. If we don’t have something homogeneous, we run the risk not only of increased Ômicron transmission, but also the appearance of other variants, and we don’t know what the potential for ‘bad things’ of this variant will be that could arise”, warned Raquel.
Sylvia Lemos Hinrichsen, infectious disease physician and Biosafety consultant at SBI, believes that the time is now to observe this new variant, to collect all possible data and wait for official reports from pharmaceutical companies. “It is very important to see, clinically, how these patients will present themselves, making the difference between those who had Covid and are vaccinated, those who are infected and who have not been vaccinated,” he said.
What is already known about the Ômicron variant?
It is known, for example, that it has 32 mutations in the protein ‘spike’ (or spike), a part considered the “key entrance” for the coronavirus in the human body, but doctors do not know how it behaves, in body.
Compared with the Delta variant, which caused fear all over the world, at the beginning of the second semester, the symptoms are different: while in Delta, infected people tend to have elevated pulse rates, low oxygen levels and loss of smell and taste, Ômicron it causes fatigue, headaches and body aches, as well as sore throat and cough.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/despite-the-unknown-vaccines-are-the-best-protection-against-omicron/
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