Faced with the Omicron variant, Professor Crémieux reports a “partial drop in the efficacy of the vaccine”, “results to be confirmed”

The Covid-19 vaccine is less effective against the Omicron variant according to a study. “Unfortunately, the first news that comes to us from South Africa, there is a decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine, which seems significant”, declared Professor Anne-Claude Crémieux, specialist in infectious diseases at Saint-Louis hospital in Paris, Wednesday December 8 on franceinfo. “The drop is significant but it is partial”, said the professor.

“The neutralizing antibodies elicited by the vaccine neutralize this Omicron variant much less well compared to the other variants according to these initial results which remain to be confirmed”, she explained.

However, “This escape is only partial. Someone who had an infection before being vaccinated, his serum remains effective on this Omicron variant. Neutralizing antibodies, it will take more or possibly modify the vaccine, but in all In this case, we keep a residual level of protection “.

Variant Omicron: “Unfortunately, according to the first news arriving from South Africa, there is a drop in the effectiveness of the vaccine which seems significant”, explains infectious disease specialist Anne-Claude Crémieux pic.twitter.com/k3k3yN2kCT

– franceinfo (@franceinfo) December 8, 2021

Anne-Claude Crémieux clarified that for the moment scientists do not know either the impact of the booster dose of the vaccine on the Omicron variant and estimated that it “it is possible that the recall will allow us to have this famous protection against severe forms”.

The Omicron variant was reported at the end of November by South Africa and the cases are more and more numerous in Europe in particular. France is currently going through the fifth wave of the pandemic. The government has taken new measures to deal with the increase in the number of sick people.