Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech – Pfizer’s partner company in the development of one of the vaccines against Covid-19 –, said this Friday (3) that the elaboration of a new immunizing agent against the disease is already expected, but that is not yet. knows when that will be necessary.
Sahin also stated, in an interview given during a Reuters conference, that the probability of people needing to be vaccinated annually against Covid-19 is also growing every day, similar to what happens with the flu vaccine.
About the vaccine developed by BioNTech in partnership with Pfizer, the CEO stated that the company could “quickly” adapt the doses due to the emergence of the Ômicron variant of the coronavirus.
On November 26, BioNTech said it expected to learn more about the vaccine’s effectiveness against the new Ômicron variant within 14 days, and that a new version of the vaccine could be delivered within 100 days.
At the same conference as BioNTech’s CEO, World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that Ômicron is indeed very transmissible, but that people shouldn’t panic about it.
“How worried should we be? We need to be prepared and cautious, not panic, because we are in a different situation than a year ago,” said Swaminathan.
WHO urged countries to increase the capacity of their health systems and vaccinate their populations to combat the rise in Covid-19 cases caused by the Ômicron variant, saying travel restrictions can buy time but are not the answer by itself.
“Delta is responsible for 99% of infections around the world. This variant would have to be more transferable to compete and become dominant around the world. It’s possible, but there’s no way to predict,” said Swaminathan.
As of this Friday morning (3), 36 countries had reported cases of the new variant since November 24, when South Africa indicated the presence of the first cases reported to the WHO.
By the end of the afternoon of Thursday (3), the Ministry of Health had confirmed five cases of the variant in Brazil.
*With information from CNN Agency
Reference: CNN Brasil
