Dr. Anthony notes that updating COVID-19 vaccines necessary for strengthened immunity

Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, explained the importance of updating COVID-19 vaccines to target emerging sub-variants of the Coronavirus, particularly the Omicron variant.

Dr. Anthony said currently, this variant has evolved into five sub-variants, which are highly transmissible in comparison to the original strain of the virus. This, the minister said has led the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider updating COVID-19 vaccines to target sub-variants BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5, which are predominantly responsible for newer infections across the world.

“One of the things that has happened with these different sub-variants, the spiked protein has changed and this is the protein that was used for the immune system to detect these vaccines and to react to the vaccine,” Dr. Anthony said,

He continued, “So, if you have a change to the spike protein then the immune system would not react effectively, and therefore you have to change that protein to match what is now circulating.”

The minister further explained that Pfizer and BioNTech have started manufacturing updated vaccines to be used as booster doses. These vaccines, he said have so far shown a substantially higher immune response than the current COVID-19 vaccines.

Minister Anthony is hopeful that more vaccines will become available to ensure a higher immunity against the disease. “As we understand which variants are circulating, they’ll be able to develop vaccines that are specific to those variants which would be more effective so it’s a good thing,” Dr. Anthony pointed out.

Meanwhile, the minister revealed that Guyana is currently using three vaccines namelyPfizer, Sinopharm and Johnson and Johnson.