The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this Wednesday the reinforcement of the new Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines, already adapted to the Ómicron variant and its subvariants, which may be inoculated as of next week, through a new immunization campaign that will be launched in the North American power.
The 2 updated vaccines were authorized for a booster dose, as of the years that of BioNTech and from the 18 that of Moderna, the agency said. The new generation of vaccines targets both the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and Ómicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. Therefore, they allow “providing greater protection against the Omicron variant that currently circulates”, according to the FDA.
The authorities anticipate that the same subvariants will continue to circulate widely in the fall and winter. The booster dose can be administered to all those who have received the previous vaccine or booster for more than 2 months. Vaccines have not yet been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will discuss the issue on Thursday.
Also in Europe
“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent Covid-19 to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf.
A Earlier this summer, the US Department of Health announced that it had purchased 105 million doses of BioNTech and 66 millions of Moderna to wear during the fall and winter. Both companies have already submitted an authorization request for this updated version of the inoculant also to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Vaccines currently circulating were designed to protect against the initial strain of the virus that was first reported at the end of 2019 in Wuhan , China, but little by little they have been less effective against the variants that have appeared over time, due to the rapid evolution of the virus.
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