India ups guard against omicron, SII chief says variant-specific booster likely

With the omicron
coronavirus variant putting the world on alert and with concerns rife about
whether the available vaccines will be able to fight this new and highly-mutative
variant, Serum Institute of India (SII) chief Adar Poonawalla told NDTV that it
will still take a couple of weeks to find out if Covishield, the Indian vaccine
variant of UK’s AstraZeneca vaccine, will work against omicron.

Serum Institute of
India (SII) is the manufacturer of Covishield and is the world’s largest
manufacturer of vaccines. Adar Poonawalla said that scientists at Oxford are
continuing their research, and based on their findings, the company will come
out with a new vaccine which would act as a booster in six months’ time.

Also Read | Vaccine hesitancy greatest threat in overcoming pandemic: Adar Poonawalla

“Based on the
research, we would know about the third and fourth dose for us all,” Poonawalla
said in an interview with NDTV.

The SII chief’s comments
on a potential booster dose comes at a time the Centre has upped its ante on
the omicron variant. The Indian government has taken a series of measures to
monitor the variant which will come into effect from Tuesday midnight.

For people coming
into India from “at-risk countries”, a COVID-19 RT-PCR test has been made
mandatory and they will also have to quarantine for seven days at home and will
be re-tested on the eighth day. If travelers test positive, they will be put in
isolation and treated.

Samples that test
positive will be sent to the INSACOG labs network which will conduct genome
sequencing to determine the variant of coronavirus driving the infection.
States where cases are reported will then take up contact-tracing.

India saw a deadly
outbreak of COVID-19 earlier this year on account of the Delta variant.
Consequently, governments of both Union and states are taking care to ensure
that the omicron variant does not overwhelm the healthcare infrastructure. So
far, no omicron case has been detected in India.

Omicron is a
highly-mutative coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa. Scientists
are already working to find if the existing vaccines will world against the
variant. The chief of Moderna, one of the vaccines available against COVID-19,
has already said that the firm’s shot may not give enough protection against
the new strain and a new vaccine will be made available in January.