This comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) assured that the vaccines available “last very well” in protecting people from the worst forms of coronavirus disease for six months or more.
“Neutralization data have a basis, but it is really the clinical data that has the greatest impact on the management of the Omicron situation,” said Dr. Kate O’Brien, Director of the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biology.
Dr. O’Brien said collective immunity remained out of reach, in part because vaccines in circulation today, despite all their effectiveness, “did not function at the level at which the concept of herd immunity is likely to be achieved.” .
This was due, at least in part, to a lack of universal vaccination coverage, which is why the richest countries have benefited from vaccination campaigns, while the poorer countries have suffered little from life-saving injections, Dr O’Brien told UN News.
A WHO official stressed that the so-called “outbreak infections” of people who had already been vaccinated “were not surprising” that they had increased as vaccination coverage increased.
“It doesn’t mean the vaccine doesn’t work, it simply means that an increasing number of people have actually been vaccinated.”
With the spread of Omicron, Dr. O’Brien stressed that those most at risk were the unvaccinated, who accounted for 80 to 90 percent of those seriously ill with the coronavirus.
Source: ANI