Pharmaceutical companies announced plans Friday to test their COVID-19 vaccines' efficacy against the newly designated Omicron variant of the virus.
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The agency's technical advisory group said it has a large number of mutations that make it "concerning."
"The company is working rapidly to test the ability of the current vaccine dose to neutralize the Omicron variant and data is expected in the coming weeks," the company said.
"The mutations in the Omicron variant are concerning and for several days, we have been moving as fast as possible to execute our strategy to address this variant,"
Pfizer-BioNTech said they're also investigating its COVID-19 vaccine's efficacy against the new variant and expects to have results in no more than two weeks, CNBC reported. The companies said they can adapt their mRNA vaccine within six weeks and begin shipping out new batches within 100 days if needed.
"These data will provide more information about whether B.1.1.529 could be an escape variant that may require an adjustment of our vaccine if the variant spreads globally," the companies said.
Newsweek reported that an escape variant is one that can avoid the protections of existing vaccines.
"We are closely monitoring newly emerging COVID-19 virus strains with variations of the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein and are already testing the effectiveness of our vaccine against the new and rapidly spreading variant first detected in
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