Current vaccine likely to protect against severe Omicron infection: BioNTech CEO

BioNTech's Chief Executive Officer Ugur Sahin has clarified that the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines is likely to offer strong protection against any severe disease from the new Omicron variant. However, this new highly mutated variant could result in more vaccinated people becoming infected.

But even if the Omicron variant is able to elude antibodies in vaccinated people, it will probably still be targeted by immune cells and they will likely remain protected against severe illness, Ugur Sahin said in an interview. "Don't freak out, the plan remains the same. Speed up the administration of a third booster shot."

This statement by BioNTech CEO comes amid various views from vaccine developers on the efficacy of their shots against the new COVID-19 variant. He went on to state that the BioNTech mRNA jab developed with US drugs giant Pfizer has already proven that it can protect against severe disease from other variants of the virus that vaccinated people have contracted.

Ugur Sahin noted that while Omicron will likely be able to evade antibodies generated by vaccines better than the Delta variant, due to the higher number of mutations, it is unlikely that Omicron will be able to circumnavigate the body's T-cell immune response to an infection.

Lab tests by BioNTech are currently underway to analyse the blood of people who had two or three doses of the company's Comirnaty vaccine to observe whether antibodies found in that blood inactivate Omicron. While giving an interview Ugur Sahin said that he expects results to show some loss of vaccine protection against mild and moderate disease due to Omicron but the extent of that loss was hard to predict.

(With Reuters Inputs)