China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation, better known as Sinopharm, announced on Monday it had submitted an application for clinical trials of an mRNA vaccine similar to those developed by American companies Pfizer and Moderna, but specifically tailored for guarding against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The vaccine is different from Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV and WIBP-CorV vaccines, which are based on the original SARS-CoV-2 virus that appeared in Hubei Province in late 2019, sparking the outbreak that became the pandemic. They use an older and more proven method of inoculation based on an inactivated version of the virus. More than a billion people have been inoculated in China and abroad using them.
However, the earlier shots did not provide the same level of protection against later variants, especially Omicron, which is now driving the largest outbreaks that China has seen in the pandemic.
The mRNA vaccines used in the West haven’t fared much better, with average new daily cases hovering above 100,000 for almost four straight months in the United States, which has almost exclusively used the Pfizer and Moderna shots. According to experts, the rise in take-home rapid COVID-19 tests has depressed the official numbers, meaning the outbreak is much larger than reports show.
The UK on Monday became the first country to authorize the use of Moderna’s updated vaccine, which can protect against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants of Omicron that have become the dominant causes of infection in recent months.
“The first generation of Covid-19 vaccines being used in the UK continue to provide important protection against the disease and save lives,” June Raine, the chief executive of the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, told the New York Times. “What this bivalent vaccine gives us is a sharpened tool in our armory to help protect us against this disease as the virus continues to evolve.”
The new vaccine’s effectiveness was announced last month, and the Biden administration moved quickly to buy 66 million doses. Weeks earlier, Pfizer revealed its Omicron-specific shot, and the US Department of Health and Human Services bought 105 million doses of it. According to the DHHS, both agreements contain clauses allowing the orders to be ramped up to 300 million, if Congress provides additional funding for the purchases.
Russa’s Gamaleya Institute has also been working on an updated version of its Sputnik V, which was the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, to account for the emergence of the Omicron variant. On Monday, director Alexander Gintsburg said the new intranasal version was “demonstrating high efficiency in protecting against all strains,” including new Omicron sub-variants.