EMA on Alert Over New COVID-19 Variants: Official

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) stays alert for new variants of COVID-19, which "continues to mutate at high speed," an agency official said on Friday.

"According to the data, Europe is still experiencing the circulation of the Omicron BA.5 variant, although the peak of the summer wave was a few weeks ago in many of the member states," Marco Cavaleri, head of the EMA's health threats and vaccines strategy, told an online press conference from Amsterdam.

"The EMA keeps monitoring the situation to better understand the trend of the new wave and to be prepared for new waves, which are always extremely difficult to predict," Cavaleri said.

The official cited the situation in India as an example, where the Omicron subvariant BA2.75 is spreading faster than other variants.

"As the virus continues to mutate at high speed, we keep track of all new variants to be able to anticipate on variants of concern," Cavaleri said. "In particular, the BA2.75 currently spreading in India needs to be carefully monitored."

On Thursday, the EMA recommended the use of two vaccines adapted against the Omicron variant of COVID-19 from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.