Infectious disease specialist Dr. Céline Gounder is encouraging Americans to prepare for an imaginable new COVID booster vaccine, after a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel voted on Tuesday to propose the conversion of the COVID vaccine. the highly contagious variant of the Omicron virus and will possibly be available this fall.
“I think we want the virus to continue to mutate,” Gounder told CBS Mornings on Thursday. “We want to keep track of the virus and even if it gained two reminders, that is, 4 doses, it is still highly recommended to receive the updated reminder to better adapt to the virus circulating lately. “
The Omicron variant, Gounder said, gave the impression last fall and continued to mutate, eventually becoming the maximum dominant strain in the country. .
“People will come back in, kids will go back into the classroom, other people will go back to work on the user during that time and those Omicron subvariants, both have caused an accumulation both. “both times they have emerged,” she says.
She predicts in the short term that the mavens will propose annual booster shots for the elderly and immunocompromised, as well as injections for the general population when “there is a big update on the variant. “The infectious disease specialist added, however, that the scientists “I don’t know what the speed will be with the variant. “
“I think the Holy Grail would be a universal coronavirus vaccine that would cover all variants,” he said. “The challenge is that we’re still years away from that. We don’t have a speed of distortion of operations, you know, a lot of investment and resources to move forward. “
Gounder, who is editor-in-chief of Kaiser Family Foundation Health News, recommends that those who want to get the existing COVID booster vaccine stick to their appointments despite the potential new booster vaccine on the horizon.
“These updated vaccines won’t be available until at least October and we don’t know what the source will be in October,” he said. “So, it will be a little longer before I can get this updated booster. “
He also warned others about monkeypox, a rare but potentially fatal viral infection from the same circle of relatives of viruses like smallpox that has recently spread around the world. While Gounder says the disease is actively spreading among “men who have sex with men, he noted that “it’s only a matter of time before it spreads to the rest of the population. “
The disease is transmitted through direct contact with other inflamed people with active lesions. A vaccine from the strategic national reserve is recently being made available to the public, Gounder said.
“We’re looking to nip this in the bud,” he said.