Sinovac is already studying a new version of CoronaVac that can oppose the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, explained the president of the company, Weidong Win, and the vice president and leader of research and development, Yalling Hu. Both of them participated in the CoronaVac Symposium, an international event realized by Butantan with the support of the chinese pharmaceutical that started this tuesday (7).
The Sinovac has dedicated itself to isolate the virus, starting from samples of the Hong Kong patients, to initiate the neutralizing antibody tests. Afterwards, they pretend to perform a clinical trial to examine the efficacy of the immunizing. They estimate that all processes take at least three months.
“The mutation is highly unstable at the moment and we are still working at the crossing neutralization caused by the coronavirus”, explained Yalling Hu. “I believe that in the near future we will need more work to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccines against that variant, and maybe, go beyond that to evaluate the coverage of the vaccine we have today”, she added.
In his speech at the event opening, side by side with the Butantan’s president, Dimas Covas, Weidong Win highlighted that there are still lots of doubts related to the omicron, its mutation tax and the escape possibilities of the vaccine. Even so, there are evidences that CoronaVac has efficiency against the new strain.
“We hope for even more collaboration to a quicker development of the immunizing for the new variants or the booster vaccines, and we are sure that with partnerships like Butantan’s we will be able to oppose the Covid-19”, highlighted Weidong Win.
