(Adds comments from Regeneron and Johnson, more on Germany)
* Drugmaker's CEO warns of 'material drop' in effectiveness
* Markets fall on fears of prolonged pandemic
* Time needed to see if vaccines work against Omicron
* Variant was first detected in Netherlands on Nov. 19
* Japan reports first case as new variant spreads
By Ludwig Burger and Emma Thomasson
FRANKFURT/BERLIN, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The chief executive of
drugmaker Moderna set off fresh alarm bells in
financial markets on Tuesday with a warning that existing
COVID-19 vaccines would be less effective against the new
Omicron variant than they have been against Delta.
However, European Medicines Agency (EMA) executive director
Emer Cooke told the European Parliament that, even if the new
variant becomes more widespread, existing vaccines will continue
to provide protection.
Andrea Ammon, chair of the European Centre for Disease
prevention and Control (ECDC), said the 42 cases of the variant
so far confirmed in 10 European Union countries were mild or
without symptoms, although in younger age groups.
Major European stock markets, spooked by fears that vaccine
resistance https://www.reuters.com/world/how-worried-should-we-be-about-omicron-variant-2021-11-27
may prolong the two-year-old pandemic, were down about 1% at
around 1300 GMT.
U.S. stock index futures were down more than 1%.
Crude oil futures shed just under 3%, while Tokyo's
Nikkei index closed down 1.6%
"There is no world, I think, where (the effectiveness) is
the same level?.?.?. we had with Delta," Moderna CEO Stephane
Bancel told the Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/27def1b9-b9c8-47a5-8e06-72e432e0838f.
"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know
how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the
scientists I've talked to?.?.?. are like 'this is not going to
be good'."
The University of Oxford said there was no evidence that
current vaccines would not prevent severe disease from Omicron https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/how-fast-does-it-spread-scientists-ask-whether-omicron-can-outrun-delta-2021-11-29,
but that it was ready to rapidly engineer an updated version of
its shot, developed with AstraZeneca, if
necessary.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said "we think it's
overwhelmingly likely" that booster shots would continue to
protect against severe disease.
LAB TESTS
Moderna did not reply to a Reuters request for comment, or
say when it expects to have data on the effectiveness of its
vaccine on Omicron, which the World Health Organization (WHO)
says carries a very high risk of infection surges.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said its COVID-19 antibody
cocktail and other similar antiviral treatments could be less
effective against the latest variant.
News of Omicron's emergence had wiped roughly $2 trillion
off global stocks on Friday, after it was identified in southern
Africa and announced on Nov. 25.
And yet Dutch authorities said the variant had been detected
in the Netherlands as early as Nov. 19, before two flights
arrived from South Africa that were known to have carried the
virus.
Cooke said lab tests for "cross neutralisation" would take
about two weeks. If there were a need to change COVID-19
vaccines, new ones could be approved within three or four
months, she added.
"Vaccination will likely still keep you out of the
hospital," said John Wherry, director of the Penn Institute for
Immunology in Philadelphia.
Moderna and fellow drugmakers BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson
are already working on vaccines that specifically target
Omicron. Moderna has also been testing a higher dose of its
existing booster.
Uncertainty about the new variant has triggered border
closures that have cast a shadow over a nascent economic
recovery from the pandemic, just as parts of Europe see a fourth
wave of infections as winter sets in.
Many of the travel restrictions have focused, to South
Africa's fury, on banning flights to and from southern Africa.
Japan, the world's third largest economy, confirmed its
first case of the new variant on Tuesday, in a traveller from
Namibia. Australia found that a person with Omicron had visited
a busy shopping centre in Sydney while probably infectious.
BORDER CONTROLS
Britain and the United States have both pushed their booster
programmes in response to the new variant. England made face
masks compulsory once again in shops and on public transport,
and London said international arrivals would have to
self-isolate until they get a negative result in a PCR test.
Greece said vaccination would be compulsory for the
over-60s, the group seen as most vulnerable to COVID-19.
Australia on Monday delayed the reopening of its
international borders by two weeks, less than 36 hours before
foreign students and skilled migrants were to be allowed back.
But in Germany, a current hotspot of the previous
significant variant, Delta, the seven-day average infection rate
fell slightly for the first time in three weeks after new
restrictions to slow transmission.
Neighbouring Austria, which imposed its fourth full lockdown
last week in response to a surge in infections, also registered
a drop.
The curbs on travellers from southern Africa have
highlighted the inequality of vaccine distribution, which may
have given the virus more opportunities to mutate.
The passenger liner Europa was docking in Cape Town on
Tuesday in what was meant to be the official start of the first
cruise ship season in South Africa's top tourist hub since the
pandemic.
After Omicron was discovered while they were at sea, many
passengers were expected to fly straight home.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Himani
Sarkar and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Shri Navratnam, Andrew
Cawthorne and Nick Macfie)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
