If new vaccines against the Omicron variant are needed, they could be produced on a large scale as early as early 2022, Moderna CMO Burton said. They have been working on an update for days, he said.
Vaccine maker Moderna already began working on a vaccine against the Omikron variant on the Thanksgiving holiday. Hundreds of its employees had begun working on an appropriate adaptation of the Corona vaccine right on the holiday, which is usually celebrated in a big way in the U.S., following initial publications on the mutant, the pharmaceutical company’s chief medical officer, Paul Burton, said Sunday in a BBC interview. Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 25 this year.
Vaccine could be produced as early as 2022
He said it will take several more weeks to have firm findings on how much the new Corona variant eludes the effectiveness of current vaccines and whether a new vaccine will need to be produced. If that is the case, he said he expects this could be produced on a large scale in early 2022. Like Biontech’s agent, Moderna’s vaccine is one of the mRNA vaccines whose adaptation to new variants is considered relatively feasible.
Moderna chief optimistic
“This is a dangerous-looking virus,” Burton said. “But I think we have a lot of tools in our arsenal now to fight it, so I’m optimistic.” First detected in southern Africa, the Omikron variant (B.1.1.529) was classified as “of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- source: vienna.at/picture:pixabay.com
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