The risks of omicron: How Pfizer and Moderna plan to mitigate fears over variant of concern
Posted November 30, 2021 2:30 pm.
Last Updated November 30, 2021 2:37 pm.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — pharmaceutical powerhouses that have helped Canada and other countries manage the rapidly evolving coronavirus — now have their collective sights on a new variant: omicron.
Both mRNA vaccines were recently authorized for the use and distribution of booster shots by Health Canada, thus granting millions the opportunity to get ahead of omicron. Though little is known on how the latest variant affects the general population compared to delta, the World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned it is not yet clear if the omicron variant is more contagious than others.
“Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected, rather than a result of specific infection with omicron,” the WHO said on Friday after designating it a variant of concern.
“There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with omicron are different from those from other variants. Initial reported infections were among university students — younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease — but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks.”
After a period of low transmission in South Africa, new cases began to increase rapidly in mid-November. The country is now seeing nearly 3,000 confirmed new infections per day.
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The WHO said it’s currently working with technical partners “to understand the potential impact of this variant on our existing countermeasures, including vaccines.” However, the ambiguity on whether Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s mRNA formula can safely protect against severe disease remains largely up in the air.
On Tuesday, Pfizer’s founder, Ugur Sahin, told the Wall Street Journal in an exclusive interview that while the new variant could spread more quickly, the mRNA vaccine was more likely to protect against critical illness.
People vaccinated with Pfizer/BioNTech will most likely be protected from severe illness if infected with Omicron, BioNTech CEO says – WSJ
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) November 30, 2021
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the emergency use authorization of a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to include individuals 18 years of age and older.
As more health officials try to calm fears, insisting that vaccines remain the best defence, the WHO says the world must redouble its efforts to get the shots to every part of the globe.
On the other hand, Moderna is less optimistic its current mRNA formula will prove successful at offering protection against omicron.
World markets continued to seesaw on every piece of medical news, whether worrisome or reassuring. Stocks fell on Wall Street in the morning after Moderna’s CEO expressed concern about the effectiveness of the vaccines against omicron.
In a television interview with Bloomberg, Moderna’s co-founder Noubar Afeyan admitted he’s concerned about the number of mutations of the new variant and the risk it poses.
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s chief executive officer, told the Financial Times the mutations could mean modifying their mRNA vaccine.
“There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level . . . we had with [the] Delta [variant],” Bancel said during the interview. In recent conversations with scientists, Bancel said the consensus isn’t overly optimistic.
As of Tuesday, Moderna’s market shares slumped 5.3 per cent.
In a news release published on Friday, Moderna said it’s “working rapidly to test the ability of the current vaccine dose to neutralize the omicron variant,” adding that data is expected in the coming weeks.
“Since early 2021, Moderna has advanced a comprehensive strategy to anticipate new variants of concern,” the pharmaceutical company said. “This strategy includes three levels of response should the currently authorized 50 µg booster dose of mRNA-1273 prove insufficient to boost waning immunity against the omicron variant.”
As part of that release, Bancel called Moderna’s response “imperative” as the virus evolves.
“The mutations in the omicron variant are concerning and for several days, we have been moving as fast as possible to execute our strategy to address this variant,” Bancel said.
“We have three lines of defence that we are advancing in parallel: we have already evaluated a higher dose booster of mRNA-1273 (100 µg), second, we are already studying two multi-valent booster candidates in the clinic that were designed to anticipate mutations such as those that have emerged in the Omicron variant and data is expected in the coming weeks, and third, we are rapidly advancing an Omicron-specific booster candidate.”
A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is shown at a UHN COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Toronto on Jan. 7, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
The WHO says other treatments — including Pfizer’s booster shot — will be assessed to see if they are still as effective given the changes to parts of the virus in the omicron variant. For its part, Pfizer-BioNTech said its Phase 3 booster trial continues to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a 30-µg booster dose in more than 10,000 individuals 16 years of age and older in the U.S., Brazil, and South Africa.
Ontario, meanwhile, continues its investigation into four other possible cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant after the country’s first two positive samples were detected in Ottawa. Hundreds of people who had recently travelled from African countries deemed high-risk for the variant were being contacted for testing.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said Monday the government is reviewing measures and are expected to update the province’s booster rollout as early as this week. As things stand, individuals 70-and-up are eligible for booster shots, as well as anyone who received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press
