FDA’s Decision on Covid Booster Shots Expected in Days

[ad_1]

It looks like Pfizer will allow booster vaccines this week for many Americans at high risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus, as the Food and Drug Administration voted to recommend a key advisory committee measure.

on Friday, a panel of experts Pfizer has approved offering booster vaccines for people aged 65 and over and those aged 16 and over who are at high risk of contracting severe Covid-19 or working in environments where they are more likely to become infected.

The agency, which usually follows the committee’s advice but is not required to do so, is expected to make a decision earlier this week. An advisory committee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss booster vaccines before the vaccine policy-making agency publishes its recommendations.

The verdict on Pfizer booster shots is just one of the following. a series of important questions The agency is expected to consider it in the coming weeks. Officials said they expect to have data soon on whether boosters are needed for people with the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

A vaccination decision is also expected this fall for children ages 5 to 11, a heavily watched issue given that nearly 48 million children are not yet eligible for vaccination but are largely back in the classroom. Pfizer said it plans to publish the results of the children’s case by the end of this month, and officials said they expect results from Moderna’s children’s case this fall.

Interviewed on Sunday morning news programs, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor and President Biden’s adviser, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci urged Americans to be patient and not get booster vaccinations until appropriate. This includes people aged 65 and over who have received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

“We’re currently working on this to get the data to the FDA so they can review it and make a decision about boosters for these people,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They are by no means left behind.”

Last month, Biden administration suggested a plan to qualify all vaccinated Americans for the first vaccine eight months after the second vaccine, or in the case of a one-time Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

But the expert panel concluded that boosters are not necessary for most young, healthy Americans unless their job puts them at particular risk for infection.

Director of the FDA’s vaccine division, Dr. According to Peter Marks, jobs in this category will include healthcare workers, emergency responders and teachers.

Whatever the FDA decides on boosters this week, Dr. Fauci predicted that it will likely be revised as more data comes in. “In real time, more and more data is accumulating,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “This data will be continually re-examined and possible changes to recommendations made.”

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis S. Collins echoed these words about CBS’ “Face the Nation” and said the category of who is eligible for an extra shot will be expanded “in the coming weeks.” ”

FDA officials will also spend the next weeks and months evaluating vaccines for children younger than 12. On ABC on Sunday, Dr. A decision on vaccines for children will definitely come “this fall”, Fauci said, adding that “sometime in the middle to late autumn.” We will see enough data to be able to make a decision to vaccinate children 11 to 5.” The decision to vaccinate children under 5 will come later.

A flurry of decisions comes as public health officials hope to prevent a recurrence last fall and winter, when rising infections led to the highest levels of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States.

The highly contagious Delta variant accounts for more than 99 percent of cases followed in the country, according to the CDC. 1, according to a New York Times database. Vaccines have been shown to protect against serious diseases caused by the variant.

Dr. Fauci said on Sunday that the key to avoiding fall and winter fluctuations is to encourage adults who are fit but not yet vaccinated to change their minds.

“I believe that if we get the overwhelming majority of people vaccinated as we enter fall and winter, we can have good control over that and not have a really bad winter,” he said on the “Meet the Press.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *