Emer Cook (EMA): There is no evidence that vaccine modification is required for Omicron

The European Union’s Drugs Regulatory Authority is preparing for the need to modify coronavirus vaccines to treat the new Omicron variant, but there is no evidence that this will be necessary, the head of the European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday. , Emer Cook.

“There is no answer as to whether we will have to adjust the vaccines,” Cook told the media.

He added that the agency needed more data on the vaccine’s effectiveness, the transmissibility of the variant and the severity of the disease it causes.

Cook said she did not believe people would continue to be in a pandemic a year ago when EMA gave the green light for the first vaccine to be made available to the bloc, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Finally, he said the European Union has the potential to produce 300 million doses of vaccine a month, as pharmaceutical companies have increased their production to meet the growing demand for the bloc’s 450 million population.