The European Medicines Authority reassures the world in light of the great concern about the mutant `Omicron`

Weather of Arabia - The medical community is experiencing great confusion due to the new mutant of the Corona virus "Omicron" due to the conflicting information received about it.

Last week, the European Medicines Agency issued a statement on Thursday confirming that most cases of the Omicron mutation in the European Union appear to be mild so far.

The initial ruling from the European Medicines Agency comes after the World Health Organization said there is some evidence that omicron causes less serious disease than delta (the currently dominant mutant), but preliminary data shows omicron is able to infect people who have already been infected. Previously infected with the virus, compared to other variants, in addition to those who had previously received vaccinations with anti-Coronavirus vaccines.

While Marco Cavalieri, head of vaccination strategy at the European Medicines Authority, believes that there is an absolute necessity to collect more information and determine whether Omicron is different from other mutations in the severity of symptoms and the speed of infection spread or not.

The World Health Organization had expected that the Omicron mutant would spread around the world to infect a large number of people, even including those who had received anti-Coronavirus vaccines before.

While Ahmed Al-Mandhari, an official in the regional office of the World Health Organization in the Middle East, indicated that most of the new strains did not cause serious symptoms for the infected.

Al-Mandhari added that the experts of the international organization are working all over the world in order to determine the effect of Omicron and its ability to transmit quickly between people, and that the danger of the mutant is in the speed of transmission and the spread of infection between people .

And the World Health Organization advised the need to continue to wear a mask and adhere to the rules of social separation while maintaining personal hygiene even after receiving the anti-Coronavirus vaccine.

The efficacy of vaccines against the "Omicron" mutant.

The World Health Organization directed some reassuring words to the world about the Omicron mutant of the emerging corona virus, as the organization announced that there is no evidence of a decline in the effectiveness of vaccines due to the Omicron mutant.

The World Health Organization has stated that there is no need to manufacture new vaccines to combat Omicron, which has caused a wave of global concern, and that pharmaceutical companies will need to make minor adjustments to existing vaccines.

For its part, the company "Biontech" and its American partner "Fayez" issued data indicating that receiving three doses of their vaccine provides similar protection against Omicron as two doses do against the Delta strain that is prevalent in the world now.

While the European Medicines Authority said that, if necessary, a new vaccine could be allowed to be used in Europe for the new mutant "Omicron" next spring.

Marco Cavalieri, head of vaccines at EMA, stated that the authority is working with vaccine manufacturers on developing a vaccine for the new mutant, and that the authority has already released its minimum requirements for manufacturing and clinical data needed to obtain approval.

The new corona mutant "Omicron"

Although the southern hemisphere is experiencing summer now, the situation is not promising, as cases of the emerging coronavirus began to rise in South Africa, where confirmed cases rose within 24 hours to 1,000 cases, especially in the Gauteng region, adjacent to Johannesburg and Pretoria.

This sharp rise in the number of infections does not have to be related to the new mutant that was first recorded in Botswana, and according to the researchers, this new mutant contains "a very large number of mutations", comparable to 32 mutations in the Spike protein, and this makes it able to escape. From the immune system and makes it difficult to fight the mutated virus by immune cells.

Microbiologist Ravi Gupta had already demonstrated in early laboratory analyzes that two mutations now also in B. 1.1 529 increase infection and reduce antibody recognition.

The reason for choosing the name "Omicron" for the new Corona virus mutant

Many around the world are wondering why the new Corona virus mutant is called “Omicron”, which comes after the Delta mutant.

And the World Health Organization revealed that it chose the name “Omicron” after the name of the new mutant of the Corona virus, based on the Greek alphabet that it used to name the mutant with. The name "Omicron" is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet.

The World Health Organization refuses to name the names of viruses or their mutations after the names of countries or cities, as happened at the beginning, and some called the new mutation the name of the country “Botswana”, which is located in southern Africa.

Source: Euractiv + Politico