FDA reportedly looking to fast-track Omicron vaccines and therapeutics

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reportedly moving to fast-track new vaccines and drugs meant to target the recently emerged "Omicron" variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.

The drug agency "has been meeting with drugmakers and setting guidelines for the studies and data needed to swiftly evaluate products targeting the new Omicron Covid-19 variant," sources told the Wall Street Journal this week.

The approval process for any new vaccines will reportedly be subject to the same requirements as those of the recently deployed COVID-19 boosters, the paper reported. 

The Omicron variant was first detected in Africa last month, touching off a flurry of travel bans and lockdowns around the world, though at least one of the doctors who helped discover the variant has described that the symptoms associated with the variant as "extremely mild."