Adapting vaccines to the omicron variant will take between three and four months

The director of the European Medicines Agency, Emer Cooke, said Tuesday that the agency has plans to accelerate the adaptation of vaccines to the new omicron variant if necessary, a process that he has estimated will take between three and four months.

In an intervention in the European Parliament, Cooke He wanted to send a message of caution in the face of the new variant and he has insisted that many elements of the new variant are still unknown to determine whether existing vaccines will have to be adapted.

“We don’t know yet if this will be needed, but in any case we have contingency plans prepared. We work with regulators because we expect the best, but we are prepared for the worst, “said the head of the EMA.

At all times he has stressed that existing vaccines remain effective against variants circulating in Europe. “We know that the virus is mutating and there will be a point where we have to change the current approach,” he said, insisting that current vaccines protect against the coronavirus and reiterating the advice to receive the booster dose.

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Adapting vaccines would take “between three and four months” from the moment the decision is made, Cooke explained, after noting that the epidemiological situation in Europe, the level of circulation of the variant and factors of the European population such as age or vaccination in the expansion of the variant must be studied first.

All these factors differ greatly from the situation in South Africa, where the omicron variant was first detected, The executive director of the EMA has emphasized, who has reiterated that the agency is already working in this direction in coordination with other European institutions, the World Health Organization (WHO) and pharmaceutical companies. “It is something for which we are prepared,” he summarized before MEPs.