A VACCINE FOR the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 “could be ready in as little as 100 days, the UK’s chief scientific advisor has said.

Sir Patrick Vallance said today that vaccine makers are already looking at how they can make them more effective against emerging variants, and that a jab designed to specifically target the Omicron variant could be created in “about 100 days”.

Speaking at a Downing St press conference alongside UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and England’s Medical Officer Chris Whitty, Vallance said: “I think it’s important to recognise there are three ways in which this can be done and the companies are thinking about this. The first is the boosters will give high enough antibody coverage that actually that’s going to be enough to cover this. That’s the first situation and needs to be tested.

“The second is that vaccine manufacturers have been producing broader vaccines anyway to get broader coverage across potential new variants. So those are in the pipeline.

“Then a couple of companies have already said they could tweak their existing vaccines and get a new vaccine out specifically against this in about 100 days.

“Those are the sort of three scenarios, clearly the one which is the one to really go for now is boost, because it is the case that as you keep boosting the vaccine, you get slightly broader coverage because the immune system knows it needs to get broader.

“Because the antibody levels are so high, it actually causes enough coverage of other variants to be effective.”

He added it is expected the variant will spread.

Whitty said that anti-viral pills for Covid-19, which were approved by the UK earlier this month, need a “rethink” because of the new variant.

He told the press conference: “On the anti-virals, we are going to have to do a bit of a rethink on the basis of this new variant just to be confident we’ve got the right indications from it.

“There’s a variety of ways you could use it in different ways, and what we need to make sure is whatever stock we’ve got of these, what appear to be highly effective drugs, that we use in the most effective way and for the right people.

“Where you are in the pathway right from the very beginning… working out their place, we do need to think through and I think we probably need to do a rethink of it just to make sure with the new variant we’re targeting in the right direction.”