Special Envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization David Nabarro has urged people not to wait for new vaccines to come on stream and take whatever one is available now.
Speaking to RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Nabarro said that new bivalent vaccines may not be more effective at preventing severe illness than the original vaccine.
He said: "Bivalent vaccines may not necessarily be an awful lot more effective at preventing severe illness and death than the original vaccine. "We're saying get the vaccine, whichever it is, don't wait around for the new one. "Obviously, if you can get the new one that's wonderful, but just get vaccinated." Dr Nabarro said that Covid is here for the long-term. "I wish I could say that it has gone, but it hasn't," he said.
He said that the virus "looks as though it is going to be with us for the long term, but it's a changing virus." "There are more and more variants appearing and most of these variants appear also to be much less severe than the original virus," he said. "The new norm is likely to be a less severe infection that crops up in waves every two to three months." He added that he is hopeful new variants that emerge will be "more transmissible and less severe".