What’s the future of COVID boosters? FDA vaccine panel moves toward simplifying shots.
Over two years after the first COVID-19 shots became available, a federal advisory panel discussed methods to simplify and routineize the vaccine. Over 90% of the American public has now been infected, vaccinated or both, meaning that the level of protection against severe disease is vastly different from when vaccines were first introduced in December 2020. With vaccines and boosters approved incrementally for different vaccines and different age groups as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continued to evolve, the Food and Drug Administration’s Dr. David Kaslow opened the panel’s all-day meeting with more than a dozen vaccines and schedules. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve and persist, the FDA hopes to simplify vaccine options and provide a process for updating shots every year.
In most cases, the committee’s discussion focused on informing the FDA rather than providing formal direction. Any changes to vaccine policy must be approved by FDA commissioners. To implement the strategy, a second advisory panel must meet and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must approve it. At the meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the following topics were discussed: Everyone should receive the same vaccine One formal vote was taken Thursday, unanimously favoring a consistent vaccine target regardless of how many shots a person has received. When someone gets vaccinated for the first time, they receive a vaccine that targets the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, while boosters target both the original virus and the BA.4/BA.5 variants. Going forward, all shots would target the same variants if approved by the FDA commissioner. The COVID vaccine is holding up against highly contagious XBB variants, according to the CDC COVID booster shots:
How often do you need them?
Booster scheduling FDA asked the committee to consider whether boosters should be given annually to healthy, young people, and twice a year to older or immune-compromised individuals. Data suggests that people over 75 are particularly vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infections, though the risk starts to rise around the age of 60, though the committee did not make a final recommendation. Also, the risk isn’t consistent across all people with immunocompromising conditions. The FDA’s Peter Marks noted that someone with diabetes may be mildly at risk, while someone undergoing treatment for blood cancer that destroys certain immune cells would have a much higher risk of severe disease.
According to several committee members, COVID-19 vaccination should be focused on preventing severe diseases rather than all infections. Dr. Arthur Reingold, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, said tetanus vaccines do a good job of preventing disease, but not infection. The Department of Justice has charged a Utah plastic surgeon with selling fake COVID vaccination cards and destroying vaccines COVID-19 vaccination decreases hospitalization chances, contrary to the post’s claim Changing the composition of vaccines.
There was discussion about when to update an annual vaccine, and how to target one or more variants that pose the greatest risk.
As people gather and spend more time indoors in early winter, an annual vaccine would likely become available each fall, ahead of what is typically a spike in respiratory viruses. It’s possible to predict what might circulate in the U.S. the following winter based on flu cases six months earlier in Australia, but there’s no such guidance available for COVID-19. BQ.1 and XBB, along with their subvariants, now account for a tiny fraction of cases in the U.S., replacing last summer’s BA.4/BA.5 variants. Since the original viral variant hasn’t been in circulation for more than a year, several committee members are not convinced it should remain in the vaccine. Effectiveness and safety Bivalent boosters have been shown to be effective by the FDA and scientists around the world.
“All of these studies indicate measurable benefits to booster vaccines,” said Jerry Weir, director of the FDA’s Division of Viral Products. “This is pretty remarkable.” The latest COVID-19 booster along with an annual flu shot designed for older people may increase the risk of ischemic stroke among people over 65, but not others. Before the next flu season, the FDA promised a more comprehensive analysis of the data. A number of public speakers said they had been injured by their vaccinations, and officials noted that severe reactions were possible. However, data suggests that vaccines remain safe and substantially reduce the risk of hospitalization and death
