“The existing coronavirus vaccines will be much less effective in treating the ‘omicron’ mutation than previous strains,” said Moderna’s chief executive.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Stephane Bancel warned that it would take months for pharmaceutical companies to make new vaccines specifically for the “Omicron” variant, adding that the high number of Omicron mutations in the spike protein used by the virus for infecting human cells, and the rapid spread of the variant in South Africa, suggest that existing vaccines may need to be modified next year.

“I do not think there is a chance that efficiency will be at the same level as we had with Delta,” he told the Financial Times.

Bancel said Moderna believes the omicron variant is highly infectious, but it will take at least two weeks to determine how much the mutations have impacted the efficacy of the vaccines currently on the market.

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