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Some scientists say the U. S. Food and Drug Administration’s suggestion is not a suggestion to be made to the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. UU. de updating COVID vaccines every year, as with flu shots, could encourage adoption. But others are less convinced.
Scientists are divided over a proposal from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to update COVID-19 vaccines once a year, similar to the agency’s technique for updating flu vaccines. At a meeting of the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Committee on Jan. 26, some researchers argued that the plan would simplify the nation’s complex COVID-19 vaccination program and, as a result, could encourage adoption.
But others were less convinced that the vaccine will be updated every U. S. fall. In the U. S. , or if healthy adults will be asked to get vaccinated annually against COVID-19. Angela Shen, a vaccine specialist at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says the proposal, released Monday, is “conceptually not a bad idea. “But it questions whether knowledge can update the composition of the vaccine once a year, because SARS-CoV-2 generates new variants at a different rate than influenza. “Just cutting out ‘flu’ and replacing it with ‘COVID’ on all documents might not work, because COVID is not the flu,” says Shen, a former member of the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). U. S. Immunization practices.
The timing of flu vaccine updates is based on the well-documented seasonal trend of new emerging strains: The variety of strains for Northern Hemisphere vaccines is based in part on versions that were widely distributed last winter in the Southern Hemisphere. While there is some evidence that SARS-CoV-2 also spreads seasonally, this trend is not as predictable as that of influenza.
“We sense the seasonality of flu and know precisely when to vaccinate for optimal effect,” says Luciana Borio, a former FDA acting lead scientist who is now a global fitness specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. But “we just don’t know if other people want to get vaccinated every year or less to be protected against severe COVID. “
Moreover, variants of SARS-CoV-2 are not sweeping the world as lightly as flu strains, meaning it will be difficult to coordinate the composition of a COVID-19 vaccine globally. Bruce Gellin, a global fitness specialist at the Rockefeller Prevention Initiative in New York, asked the assembly whether the proposed annual update would implicitly require other countries to stick to FDA decisions. Bill Falstich, vice president of global supply chain at New York-based vaccine maker Pfizer, responded: “Not necessarily. “
While providing COVID-19 vaccines alongside flu shots would likely spur adoption, Gellin also questioned plans to provide the updated vaccine in the U. S. fall. U. S. Throughout the pandemic, the U. S. experienced a wave of summer COVID-19 cases and a larger winter surge, which only suggests it’s best to administer the vaccine early in the year, he says.
But administering the vaccine before the winter wave may cause only a wave of hospitalizations, noted Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. In winter, clinics are filled with other people infected with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), leading some U. S. hospitals to become more vulnerable to the virus. The U. S. is at full capacity this season.
At the same meeting, the vaccine advisory organization unanimously approved the agency’s proposal to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine composition for single people for the number one and booster doses. Currently, in the U. S. , other people are completing a number one COVID-19 vaccine series: at least two doses of vaccines made through Pfizer: BioNTech, Moderna or Novavax, or a single injection of a Johnson vaccine.
Use of bivalent boosters has been low in the United States: About 15% of eligible Americans have gained a two-strain shot. Some experts say that’s because so many other people have won a combination of vaccines, which has caused confusion about what kind of booster they get and when.
“We desperately want to simplify the vaccination program,” says Megan Ranney, a physician and public fitness specialist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. program, from a behavioral science perspective. ” The proposal to adopt a singles vaccine composition for the entire series would alleviate some of this confusion and could encourage vaccine acceptance, as shots can be presented alongside annual flu shots, he adds. These adjustments make a lot of sense. “
Normalizing the composition of the vaccine for the number one series and the booster series would likely mean that the bivalent vaccine would be the number one formula for other people who have not yet had a number one series.
Bivalent reminders that were recently used in the United States, the United Kingdom and point to the “ancestral” strain of SARS-CoV-2 circulating at the beginning of the pandemic and the Omicron strain. CDC data shared at the advisory assembly shows that other people aged five and older who gained only a single-strain booster are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who gained a bivalent booster. However, any recall still reduces the overall threat of death from COVID-19.
Some panelists at the assembly got involved in the resolution to use a bivalent formulation, rather than an updated single-strain formulation, in long-term vaccines. The scientists noted that there is little knowledge about the effectiveness of bivalent vaccines when administered in number one. series, especially in young children, who make up a large portion of other people lately receiving a number one series in the United States. Omicron, due to a phenomenon called immune fingerprinting.
Marks told the assembly that the advisory organization would meet in May or June to discuss the need for a drafting change, and that the organization would then talk about whether an updated vaccine will come with a single strain of SARS-CoV-2, or multiple strains. It’s a vital clinical question, Ranney says, but in the meantime, “especially if you’re older or have chronic illnesses, a booster is better than no booster when you’re in the middle of an outbreak — up. “
This article is reprinted with permission and was first published on January 27, 2022.
Arab-American scientist
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