In 2022, the situation may be different

There is no need to use new coronavirus vaccines at this time. Next year, however, the world may need them.

This was said by the CEO and co-founder of the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech Ugur Shahin in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times.

“There is no need for new vaccines this year. However, by mid-2022, the situation may be different,” Shahin said.

According to him, the currently circulating variants of the coronavirus, including “Delta”, are more contagious than the original version, but they do not differ so much from it that it significantly affects the effectiveness of the vaccines used.

At the same time, there is a high probability that species will appear in the future that can “deceive” the immune system, which will require the development of new drugs.

“This virus has been with us for a long time and it will continue to adapt to existing conditions,” he said.

“We have no reason to believe that the immune system will deal more easily with the next generation of coronavirus than with today’s. The evolution of the virus is underway and this process has only recently begun,” he added.

Shahin, whose company developed the coronavirus vaccine, for the production and distribution of which the American Pfizer is responsible for the whole world, said earlier that BioNTech and its partners will need 100 days to create a new drug.

To date, about 1.4 billion doses of BioNTech have been delivered to 120 countries, and the company’s value is estimated at $ 85 billion.

In March this year, Sahin and his wife, BioNTech’s director of medical research, Ozlem Tureci, who emigrated to Germany from Turkey as children, were awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Germany’s only federal order.

It is awarded to residents of the Federal Republic of Germany and foreign nationals for special services to Germany in the fields of politics and economics, as well as in the social, spiritual and charitable spheres.

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