A new COVID-19 vaccine made specifically to combat the South African Omicron variant is in the works at two leading vaccine manufacturers.
BioNTech, a German company that has partnered with Pfizer to distribute its vaccine, announced Monday morning it had begun work on a vaccine tailored to combat the new variant.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which produces the lone one-shot vaccine available in the U.S., also announced Monday it was working on a vaccine to combat the new strain.
Many experts fear that the variant detected over the Thanksgiving holiday can evade vaccine protection because of the many mutations it has on its spike protein.
BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer for its Covid vaccine (pictured), expects to know more about the Omicron variant in the next two weeks. The company announced Monday it is working on a Omicron-specific jab
Johnson & Johnson produces the only one-shot COVID-19 vaccine available in the U.S. (pictured). The company announced Monday it is working on a jab tailored to the Omicron variant
'The first steps of developing a potential new vaccine overlap with the research necessary in order to evaluate whether a new shot will be needed,' BioNTech said in a statement.
The company announced Friday that it would likely know more about the variant, and whether it can evade its vaccine, within the next two weeks.
Omicron erupted last week after first being detected in South Africa.
It is believed the have originated in Botswana, before spreading across the African continent and Europe.
Many European countries like Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Portugal have sequenced cases of
