Four billion Covid doses including Omicron planned this year

You might be able to get a vaccine for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 before the end of the year.

Vaccine manufacturers have committed to produce at least four billion doses this year as they begin clinical trials for Omicron-specific injections.

The four billion will include new vaccines should they be needed and trials show they are safe and effective.

Omicron is now the predominant strain globally, accounting for more than 95 per cent of the cases reported in Kenya.

Tests conducted by local experts in December established that 76 per cent of the samples were of the Omicron variant, with the Delta variant accounting for 18 per cent.

“It [seeking Omicron vaccines] is based on the fact it has high transmissibility due to the constellation of mutations the variant exhibits and its gene platform. These factors make it a variant of concern," Ag Health director general Patrick Amoth said.

Already, Pfizer and BioNTech have said they plan to recruit 1,400 adults in the US for the clinical trials to test the protection from new vaccines.

During the trials, three injections will be administered to 200 unvaccinated people. Another 615 people will get two doses of the current Pfizer vaccine followed by either one or two doses of a new vaccine targeting Omicron.

A third group of 600 who received three doses of Pfizer will be given an additional dose of the Omicron vaccine.

Oxford University and AstraZeneca have also started working on a new version of their vaccine. The US company Moderna is planning to begin trials of its own Omicron-specific vaccine.

"Staying vigilant against the virus requires us to identify new approaches for people to maintain a high level of protection,” Pfizer's head of vaccine research and development Kathrin Jansen said on Tuesday.

It is not clear, however, if the trials will  be extended to developing countries struggling to come up with their own vaccines and administer the basics. Kenya has taken part in clinical trials for various vaccines and treatments

"This study is part of our science-based approach to develop a variant-based vaccine that achieves a similar level of protection against Omicron as it did with earlier variants, but with longer protection," BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said.

Vaccines include Oxford University’s AstraZeneca, two vaccines by Sanofi, an mRNA vaccine sponsored by South Africa and the Moderna vaccine. Russia has produced the Sputnik vaccine.

Drugs already been tested among Kenya patients with mixed results include Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, blood plasma, dexamethasone and chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine and monoclonal therapy from Sanofi.

The Kenya Medical Research Institute has also been involved in field testing of various antigen kits with published results showing all to have performed exceptionally well.

This month, a team of Kenyan researchers began the search for possible treatment of Covid-19 by using medicinal plants as the virus continues mutating.

The team under the Covid-19 drug development and clinical trials consortium led by Dr Jennifer Orua from Kemri aims to develop natural health products to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We hope that by the end of mapping we will be able to have the catalogue of all the medicinal plants with potential to treat Covid-19 and any other SARS-like ailments,” Orua said.

The experts will then carry out preliminary studies to narrow down a smaller sample, then subject them to laboratory studies and screening for efficacy and toxicity.

The efficacy will be tested against Sars-Cov-2 at the Kemri laboratories in hopes of finding a good resource of medicinal medicinal plants for development.

A study by  Japanese researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine found that unlike previous strains, the Omicron variant can survive longer on plastic surfaces and human skin.

The research findings are yet to be peer reviewed.

(Edited by V. Graham)