With a wave of anxiety caused by the new coronavirus mutant known as “Omicron”, vaccine makers are racing against time to develop their products to meet the latest threat to the pandemic that has haunted the world for more than two years.

A report by the American “Fox News” network revealed that vaccine manufacturers are currently working on producing “updated” doses, for fear that “Omicron”, which is currently spreading in dozens of countries, will be more resistant to the currently known vaccines.

The report indicated that “most of the current vaccines are manufactured with flexible technology, which means that they are easy to update,” noting that the “Pfizer” and “Moderna” vaccines are the easiest in terms of the possibility of modification by replacing the DNA with them to match the new mutations.

Michael Dolsten, head of medical research and development at Pfizer, told the Associated Press that the company expects to have a vaccine for “Omicron” next March.

Moderna also expects to succeed in a similar step within a period of 2-3 months, as it produces an anti-Omicron vaccine ready for testing, and other vaccine manufacturers are doing the same through different technologies, including Johnson & Johnson. .

It is noteworthy that the companies “Pfizer” and “Moderna” have already succeeded in preparing experimental doses to confront the “Delta” and “Beta” corona mutants.

Although experts doubt the feasibility of this development because “Omicron” may not be the last mutated for Corona, as mutations are a distinctive feature of viruses in general, they encourage such steps because of their importance in knowing the speed of companies in producing vaccines modified according to the mutations that occur in the virus.

According to E. John Wehrey, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, America, “Omicron sounded the alarm even if it turned out to be a false alarm. It would be really good to know if vaccine makers can update their products. Get a new vaccine and be ready.”

It seems too early to be sure that the current vaccines will withstand Omicron, as various hints have been issued in recent days about this.

For example, laboratory tests indicated that two doses of the “Pfizer” vaccine may not prevent infection of the new mutant, but they can provide protection from severe symptoms of the disease, while a third dose may suffice to do both.

Scientists around the world are monitoring the behavior of “Omicron” to get better answers about vaccine resistance, while the World Health Organization has formed an independent scientific committee to advise on the effectiveness of vaccines against the new mutant, and whether these vaccines really need modifications.

Shortly before “Omicron” was first detected in South Africa, Ugur Sahin, CEO of the “Biontech” company, which is partnering with “Pfizer” to manufacture its vaccine, considered that the low effectiveness of vaccines against “Omicron” is not an easy matter, pointing to the possibility of the emergence of another mutant as “Companies do not have an agreed strategy” to counter the virus spikes.

The decision to modify vaccines seems already difficult, as the virus is moving faster than science, according to experts.