The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed an annual Covid shot for healthy adults, similar to the flu immunisation campaign, in efforts to simplify the country’s Covid vaccine strategy.
It has also asked its panel of external advisers to consider two Covid vaccine shots a year for some young children, older adults and people with compromised immunity, reports Reuters.
In briefing documents, the regulator has, additionally, proposed the need for routine selection of variants for updating the vaccine, similar to how strains for flu vaccines are changed annually.
As in SA, currently, most people in the US need to first get two doses of the original Covid vaccine spaced at least three to four weeks apart, depending on the vaccine, followed by a booster dose a few months later.
Pfizer’s primary vaccine doses for children and people involve three shots, with the third a bivalent shot given about two months later.
If the panel votes in favour of the proposal, Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccines, which target both the Omicron and the original variants, would be used for all Covid vaccine doses, and not just as boosters.
Reuters article – US FDA proposes shift to annual COVID vaccine shots (Open access)
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