Covid-19 shots made by China"s state-owned Sinopharm and Johnson & Johnson, as well as the Sputnik vaccine developed by Russia, were found to produce little or no antibodies against omicron in a study, as evidence of the new variant"s vaccine-evading abilities mount.

Researchers at the University of Washington and Swiss drugmaker Humabs Biomed SA analyzed the efficacy of six vaccines against the highly-infectious and most-mutated Covid variant. Only three out of 13 people who has taken both doses of Sinopharm"s shot showed neutralizing antibodies against omicron. For J&J, this metric dropped to one out of 12 samples. None of the 11 people fully vaccinated with Sputnik generated such antibodies.

The study, which has been published as a pre-print and is yet to be peer-reviewed, also found that the lowest reduction in protective antibodies come from a combination of prior infection and two doses of Pfizer Inc."s mRNA shots. Antibody levels in this sub-set of people dropped five-fold, compared to 44-fold for those who took both the shots from Pfizer but didn"t have a history of Covid infection. 

Sinopharm, J&J, Sputnik Vaccines Are Weaker Against Omicron in New Study

Neutralization of Omicron SARS-CoV-2 VSV pseudovirus by plasma from COVID-19 convalescent and vaccinated individuals.

Plasma neutralizing activity in COVID-19 convalescent or vaccinated individuals (mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, AZD1222, Ad26.COV2.S (single dose), Sputnik V and BBIBP-CorV). a, Pairwise neutralizing antibody titers (ID50) against Wuhan-Hu-1 (D614G), Beta and Omicron VOC. Vero E6-TMPRSS2 used as target cells. Shown one representative experiment out of 2. b, Pairwise neutralizing antibody titers of plasma (ID50) against Wuhan-Hu-1 and Omicron VOC. 11 out of 12 convalescent donors were hospitalized for COVID-19. Vero E6 used as target cells. Data are average of n = 2 replicates. Line, geometric mean of 1/ID50 titers. HCW, healthcare workers; Wu, Wuhan-Hu-1; o, Omicron VOC,b, Beta VOC. Enrolled donors" demographics provided in Extended Data Table 2.

Broadly neutralizing antibodies overcome SARS-CoV-2 Omicron antigenic shift