<p>While calls for booster jabs are growing over concerns of the Omicron Covid variant, their durability, impact and ability to quash the disease remain unknown, according to a report.</p>.<p>Due to the presence of more mutations, Omicron is suspected to undermine vaccine performance. Although, it is yet to be proved, vaccine makers are developing variant-specific boosters, Nature reported.</p>.<p>Immunisations with available shots today could help ward off a surge of Omicron infections, health experts believe, but the question remains whether the need for boosters continue indefinitely.</p>.<p>Before Omicron, it was thought that the immune-system players -- memory B and T cells -- were holding up well, and two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine would maintain long-term protection against severe disease and death.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/delhi-detects-first-omicron-case-indias-tally-of-cases-from-variant-now-5-1057785.html" target="_blank">Delhi detects first Omicron case; India's tally of cases from variant now 5</a></strong></p>.<p>But the new variant could change the immunological picture, the researchers said.</p>.<p>"Unfortunately, we're still living in uncertainty," immunologist Ali Ellebedy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, US, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>Further, the researchers said that though the extra vaccine shots may help bend the pandemic's curve, it cannot bring an end to it.</p>.<p>Real-world data from Israel and the UK indicated that Pfizer's booster dose significantly lowers risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2 and getting severe diseases.</p>.<p>The booster doses also effectively reduced the number of daily cases in Israel, the report said.</p>.<p>Based on national estimates from the US, the researchers found that a broad booster push could decrease the virus's reproduction number, Rt, which is the number of people an individual with Covid-19 can go on to infect, by around 30 per cent.</p>.<p>"It's not going to stop a raging epidemic," Marm Kilpatrick at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>"But it definitely can take an epidemic that's growing at a very uncomfortable rate for lots of people, and make that into either a shrinking epidemic or a much, much less bad one," Kilpatrick added.</p>.<p>However, the booster campaigns in high-income nations may be slowing efforts to vaccinate the rest of the world, the report said.</p>.<p>Manufacturers worldwide are currently producing an estimated 1.5 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine per month.</p>.<p>But, "the problem is that most of those doses are concentrated in certain parts of the world and are not getting to where they're needed most," Andrea Taylor, a health-policy researcher at the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, North Carolina, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>And until the world addresses issues such as delivery logistics, equitable prioritisation and healthcare infrastructure, the gap between vaccine haves and have-nots will only widen as rich nations hoard booster doses for themselves, the report added.</p>.<p><strong>Check out DH's latest videos</strong></p>
<p>While calls for booster jabs are growing over concerns of the Omicron Covid variant, their durability, impact and ability to quash the disease remain unknown, according to a report.</p>.<p>Due to the presence of more mutations, Omicron is suspected to undermine vaccine performance. Although, it is yet to be proved, vaccine makers are developing variant-specific boosters, Nature reported.</p>.<p>Immunisations with available shots today could help ward off a surge of Omicron infections, health experts believe, but the question remains whether the need for boosters continue indefinitely.</p>.<p>Before Omicron, it was thought that the immune-system players -- memory B and T cells -- were holding up well, and two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine would maintain long-term protection against severe disease and death.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/delhi-detects-first-omicron-case-indias-tally-of-cases-from-variant-now-5-1057785.html" target="_blank">Delhi detects first Omicron case; India's tally of cases from variant now 5</a></strong></p>.<p>But the new variant could change the immunological picture, the researchers said.</p>.<p>"Unfortunately, we're still living in uncertainty," immunologist Ali Ellebedy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, US, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>Further, the researchers said that though the extra vaccine shots may help bend the pandemic's curve, it cannot bring an end to it.</p>.<p>Real-world data from Israel and the UK indicated that Pfizer's booster dose significantly lowers risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2 and getting severe diseases.</p>.<p>The booster doses also effectively reduced the number of daily cases in Israel, the report said.</p>.<p>Based on national estimates from the US, the researchers found that a broad booster push could decrease the virus's reproduction number, Rt, which is the number of people an individual with Covid-19 can go on to infect, by around 30 per cent.</p>.<p>"It's not going to stop a raging epidemic," Marm Kilpatrick at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>"But it definitely can take an epidemic that's growing at a very uncomfortable rate for lots of people, and make that into either a shrinking epidemic or a much, much less bad one," Kilpatrick added.</p>.<p>However, the booster campaigns in high-income nations may be slowing efforts to vaccinate the rest of the world, the report said.</p>.<p>Manufacturers worldwide are currently producing an estimated 1.5 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine per month.</p>.<p>But, "the problem is that most of those doses are concentrated in certain parts of the world and are not getting to where they're needed most," Andrea Taylor, a health-policy researcher at the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, North Carolina, was quoted as saying.</p>.<p>And until the world addresses issues such as delivery logistics, equitable prioritisation and healthcare infrastructure, the gap between vaccine haves and have-nots will only widen as rich nations hoard booster doses for themselves, the report added.</p>.<p><strong>Check out DH's latest videos</strong></p>