WASHINGTON – The United States yesterday authorised the use of booster shots of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for people aged over 65, and adults at high risk of severe disease and those in high-exposure jobs.
The announcement means tens of millions of Americans are now eligible for a third shot once six months have passed since their second.
“Today’s (yesterday’s) action demonstrates that science and the currently available data continue to guide FDA’s decision-making for Covid-19 vaccines during this pandemic,” said Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration.
The decision was expected and came after an independent expert panel convened by the regulatory agency last week voted in favour of recommending the move.
The same group, however, declined an initial proposal submitted by Pfizer and backed by President Joe Biden’s administration to fully approve boosters to everyone aged 16 and over.
The panel – which includes vaccinologists, infectious disease researchers and epidemiologists – concluded that the benefit-risk balance differs for younger people, especially males at risk of myocarditis.
Boosters for Pfizer are currently being debated by a separate body of experts convened by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which may recommend further specifics about recipients.
For example, if obesity makes a person “at high risk of severe Covid-19”, that definition would cover more than 42% of the US population.
CDC may also have to decide which workplaces and other settings could lead to “frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2”.
For its part, FDA included “healthcare workers, teachers and day-care staff, grocery workers, and those in homeless shelters or prisons, among others”.
Recipients of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson jabs will now await news for when they, too, might become eligible for another shot. – AFP, September 23, 2021
