Interim statement on decision-making considerations for the use of variant updated COVID-19 vaccines (key messages)

Current COVID-19 vaccines, which are based on the ancestral strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, continue to exhibit strong protection against severe disease and death across all virus variants seen to date. Achieving high coverage rates with the primary series and first booster doses in the highest and high priority-use groups in every country remains the priority.

However, the emergence of variants of concerns has resulted in a rapid decline of the protection against symptomatic illness. There is therefore a need to assess whether variant-updated COVID-19 vaccines, especially to Omicron, would improve vaccine performance. Such vaccines should aim to provide even greater and more durable protection against severe disease and death, and broader protection against future variants that may be even more antigenically distant to the index virus.

Variant-updated vaccines are under clinical development and will in due course be assessed by regulatory authorities. Once these vaccines have received WHO emergency use authorization or approval by a stringent national regulatory authority, they will be considered by SAGE for policy recommendations. Policy recommendations will address different use-case scenarios for Omicron-updated vaccines and include consideration of programmatic aspects.

The full public health benefit of variant-updated vaccines and their value proposition over current vaccines can only be quantified once vaccine effectiveness data have been obtained.

(Source: WHO)