Enlarge / Doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine throughout a well being marketing campaign in Sylhet, Bangladesh on July 19, 2022. (credit score: Getty | Future Publishing)
Vaccine-making companions Pfizer and BioNTech introduced Monday that that they had accomplished their request to the US Meals and Drug Administration for authorization of their bivalent, omicron BA.4/5 booster doses, which the Biden administration is planning to distribute starting in early September.
The request follows steerage from the FDA in late June directing vaccine makers to prepared second-generation COVID-19 booster doses for the autumn that focus on each the unique model of SARS-CoV-2 and BA.4/BA.5, two omicron subvariants that share the identical spike protein. Presently, BA.5 is the dominant variant on the earth and within the US, the place it accounts for 89 % of infections, based on the newest estimates by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
FDA booster steerage
The FDA’s steerage was primarily based on the recommendation of its committee of impartial vaccine advisors, who in a June assembly felt {that a} bivalent, BA.4/5-targeting vaccine supplied the perfect probabilities for enhancing efficacy in opposition to the presently circulating variants. The present COVID-19 booster doses, which goal solely the unique SARS-CoV-2 pressure, are nonetheless strongly efficient in opposition to extreme illness and dying from COVID-19 however have been dropping efficacy in opposition to an infection amid a fast succession of variants and omicron subvariants.
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