Omicron: “No reason to doubt current vaccines protect” against variant – The HuffPost

Gaelen Morse via Reuters

OMICRON VARIANT – It is a glimmer of hope that the Omicron variant today raises a lot of fears and questions. “There is no reason to doubt” that current vaccines protect patients infected with Omicron against severe forms of Covid-19, estimated this Tuesday, December 7, Michael Ryan, the emergency manager of theWHO, in an interview with AFP.

“We have very effective vaccines that have demonstrated their potency against all variants so far, in terms of disease severity and hospitalization, and there is no reason to believe that would not be the case” with Omicron, explained Dr Ryan, in a rare one-on-one interview.

“The general behavior that we are seeing so far shows no increase in severity. In fact, some places in southern Africa report milder symptoms ”, also declared the doctor, following the example of what had said a little earlier the eminent American scientist. Anthony Fauci, also to AFP.

“We have to be very careful how we analyze this data,” said Dr. Ryan, however, being careful to point out on several occasions that we were at the very beginning of the studies of a variant detected only on November 24. by South African authorities and which has since been spotted in dozens of countries.

“We are at the very beginning, we have to be very careful in our way of analyzing this data, however, said Dr. Ryan, taking care to stress on several occasions that we were at the very beginning of the studies of a variant detected only on November 24 by South African authorities and which has since been spotted in dozens of countries.

The appearance of this variant caused some panic, especially in Europe which is already plagued by a massive fifth wave of Covid-19 cases caused by the Delta variant.

The best protection

The Irish epidemiologist – who has fought deadly diseases such as Ebola and Marburg virus disease in the field and finds himself on the front lines against the Covid-19 since its detection at the end of 2019- estimated that the first information gathered in South Africa “suggests that the vaccine seems to be holding up in terms of protection”.

He admitted, however, that vaccines may be less effective against Omicron, which is characterized by a very high number of mutations in the spike protein, which allows the virus to attach itself to cells before invading them to multiply.

But “it is highly unlikely” that the variant could completely escape the protection conferred by vaccines.

“The preliminary data we have from South Africa does not show that we have a loss of efficiency of catastrophic proportions,” he said, adding: “In fact, it is even the opposite right now. ”.

“The best weapon we have now is to get vaccinated,” he repeated, as he and his colleagues have been doing for a year now and the start of vaccination campaigns.

This new variant, named after the Greek alphabet after being classified almost immediately as “worrying” by the WHO, is probably more easily transmitted. “When a new variant appears, it tends to be more transmissible, because it competes with the previous variants,” explains Dr Ryan.

And we can imagine that Omicron takes precedence over Delta, which has been responsible for most of the infections in the world since it was spotted in India at the end of 2020.

The rules remain the same

But it is possible that Omicron is spreading so quickly in South Africa because it “exploits a decline in transmission from Delta,” he believes.

And there are also early signs that the new variant could more easily infect people who have been vaccinated or those who have already had Covid.

“There is data that re-infections are more frequent with Omicron than with previous waves or variants,” explains the doctor, hastening to add that the vaccines were designed to protect against more severe forms of disease and not necessarily against those which are more benign.

“What interests us is not so much whether we can be re-infected with Omicron but whether the new infections are more or less severe,” he emphasizes.

And above all, he insists on the need to continue practicing barrier gestures: wearing a mask, ventilating the premises, social distancing, etc.

“The virus has not changed in nature”, warns Dr. Ryan, “the rules of the game remain the same”.

See also on The HuffPost: Omicron variant: rushed departures from the airport in South Africa