The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been bothering people across the globe while hinting about the sudden crash of the economy that has seen a recovery towards the pre-pandemic phase. Experts have been keeping a close watch on the variant and called it an extremely contagious variant that shows mild symptoms that are different from what has been seen so far. Doubts were raised if the current vaccines that are being circulated across the globe would be effective enough to neutralize the omicron variant. In some good news, researchers from Israel have said that a three-shot source of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine provided ample protection against the new variant.
The fresh findings by the experts in Israel have indicated that they were similar to the figures shown by Pfizer and BioNTech earlier this week. It was an early signal that the booster shots can provide protection against the new variant. The study was carried out by Sheba Medical Centre and the Central Virology Laboratory of the Health Ministry where the blood samples of 20 people who took two vaccine doses 5 to 6 months earlier to 20 individuals who received a booster a month back.
Gili Regev-Yochay, the director at the Infectious Disease Unit at Sheba Medical Centre shared that people who received their second dose 5 to 6 months back did not have ample protection against the new virus but they do have some protection against the delta variant. The director added that a booster dose increases the protection by a hundred fold. This means that a booster dose provides a significant protection.
The team at Israel said that they have worked with the actual virus while the companies have used, what they call it as a pseudovirus that was bioengineered to imitate the mutations of omicron. The omicron variant is slowly spreading in different countries after originating in South Africa.
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