The new variant, discovered in South Africa on Thursday, November 24, has begun to spread across Europe. Cases were found in four countries: the UK, Belgium, Italy and Germany.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which convened an emergency meeting on Friday, November 26, views the omega-3 variant as “worrying”.

Laboratories are trying to find suitable vaccines for this new variant that is sweeping Europe.

AstraZeneca hopes to develop a serum “very quickly”

The British laboratory AstraZenaca claims that a serum can be developed “very quickly” against the Omicron variant, because “The process of developing a new vaccine is getting better and better”, Says Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group. Southwest.

He is quite optimistic and believes that current vaccines will work against this new strain, but it is certain in the coming weeks.

A “vaccine candidate” in Modona

American Laboratory Modena, meanwhile, announced that it would soon be prescribing “Vaccine Candidate for Special Booster Dose for Omicron Variant”.

BioNet and Pfizer were ready to adjust the vaccine

Bioentech, in collaboration with Pfizer, has announced that it will study this new variant and wait for the first study results “within two weeks”. They will see if this variant survives the vaccine protection.

France Information Quotes one of their spokespersons: “Both laboratories were set up months ago to adjust the vaccine within six weeks and give the first dose within 100 days.”.

WHO less optimistic

The WHO is far less optimistic. They warned that it would take several weeks to determine the transmissibility and viral level of the new variant, while the European Medicines Agency (EMA) considered that it was premature to plan to adapt the vaccines to the omicron variant.