Chinese Vaccine Doesn’t Give Adequate Protection Against Omicron: Study finds
New Delhi: The latest study done by the researchers in the Covid-19 vaccines found that China’s covid-19 vaccine is not protecting people against the new variant of Coronavirus ‘Omicron’.
China’s poor friend countries including Pakistan – which have used China’s Covid-19 vaccine, may see a new wave in the nation, because of a less effective vaccine.
According to the research, Hong Kong researchers have found that Sinovac Biotech Ltd., one of the most widely used vaccines in the world doesn’t provide sufficient antibodies to neutralize the omicron variant.
The researcher studied Antibodies which are one important part of the immune response that protect people from infection. The other is that the immune response is cell-mediated immunity-known as a T-cell response – which can protect people from serious illness and death.
25 fully vaccinated people with Sinovac’s shot, which is called Coronavac none showed sufficient antibodies in their blood serum to neutralize the omicron variant, the University of Hong Kong on Tuesday said.
Meanwhile, 25 fully vaccinated with the messenger RNA shot developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE showed five had neutralizing ability against the new variant, the scientists said.
If the results are like the study then it will be a big blow to those who took the vaccine worldwide- which is mostly in China and developing nations and there will be a need to create another vaccine to fight the Omicron variant, the report stated.
Companies said that a third shot will be enough to fight against the new variant. The new Covid variant called B.1.1.529 or Omicron was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from South Africa on November 24.
(_Vinayak Barot)
