Key Omicron findings may be known in days in global effort: WHO scientist

The rapid spread in South Africa of the worrisome variant has raised concern that the immune protection generated by vaccination or a previous bout of Covid is insufficient to stop reinfections

Urgent studies to understand how effective Covid vaccines are against omicron have begun in a global collaboration that may yield answers in a few days, a World Health Health Organization scientist said.

Some 450 researchers around the world have begun work to isolate the highly mutated variant from patient specimens, grow it
in the lab, verify its genomic sequence, and establish methods to test it in blood-plasma samples, said Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo, who co-leads the WHO’s research and development blueprint for vaccines and innovations during outbreaks and pandemics.

“They hope that this will happen within days, but I think we should