Covid: China says vaccine makers upgraded shots to fight Omicron

Early lab studies have shown inactivated vaccines developed by Chinese companies Sinovac and Sinopharm elicited less protective antibodies against the omicron variant than mRNA vaccines from Pfizer

Chinese officials said vaccine makers have upgraded their Covid-19 vaccines against the omicron variant and other strains but new shots will be validated for safety and efficacy before they can be rolled out.

Widely-used inactivated shots in the country have been tweaked to fight up to three variants, including omicron and the preceding predominant delta strain, according to Zheng Zhongwei, an official who oversees Covid vaccine development at the National Health Commission. Another protein subunit shot targeting four variants is seeking approval for human testing overseas, he said.

“We share the urgent wish of everybody to use omicron target vaccines,” Zheng said