Preliminary advice, as described by two people with knowledge of the matter and contained in documents seen by the Financial Times, comes from the WHO technical team.
The report said that while WHO did not respond to questions, it said it was “aware” that a statement from the technical team was “coming out soon”.
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WHO real-world policy recommendations will be made as safety and other data become available for variant-specific vaccines, people with knowledge of the matter said. said.
Specific Omicron Booster Dose
Although Moderna, Pfizer and others have come up with Omicron-specific boosters, there is no variant-specific vaccine on the market yet.
Moderna says its bivalent booster produced increased levels of antibodies last week and is safe and well tolerated. And the European Medicines Agency began a synthetic evaluation of the vaccine specific to the BioNTech/Pfizer variant this week.
The WHO advice “is a signal to the vaccine development industry to extend the immune response beyond maintaining protection against serious illness,” said one of the people with knowledge. on this matter said. “There is currently only an mRNA vaccine, so supplies will be limited,” the report said.
Based on the available data, WHO estimates that an Omicron-specific enhancer would induce “greater breadth” in the immune response.
However, a third dose of currently available vaccines will still be effective.
“The relative benefit of these particular vaccines (variants) relative to their cost is still unknown,” the person said. “(We) need to be careful that people don’t think these vaccines are superior to existing vaccines.”
Source: IANS
