FDA grants permission for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna boosters for all: Coronavirus Update: NPR
A healthcare worker injects the third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a senior living facility in Worcester, Pennsylvania, in August.
Hannah Beier / Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Hannah Beier / Bloomberg via Getty Images
A healthcare worker injects the third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a senior living facility in Worcester, Pennsylvania, in August.
Hannah Beier / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Food and Drug Administration has authorized fully immunized Americans 18 years of age and older to receive a COVID-19 booster shot.
On Thursday, the FDA granted emergency use authorization for the third dose of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which have been made available to people 65 years of age and older and to anyone 18 years of age. or older are at high risk of contracting COVID-19.
Peter Marks, MD, Ph.D. “The FDA has determined that available data support extending the eligibility of a single booster dose of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to individuals 18 years of age and older,” said Peter. Marks, MD, Ph.D. , director of the FDA’s Center for Biological Evaluation and Research. “Streamlining eligibility criteria and making booster doses available to all individuals 18 years of age and older will also help eliminate confusion about who may receive a booster dose.” and make sure everyone who might need a booster is available.”
The FDA says people who begin the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine will be eligible for a booster shot six months after the second shot. People who have had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be eligible for a booster shot two months after the first shot.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee of independent experts will meet Friday afternoon to address the issue. If the panel approves and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky agrees, the enhanced photographs could be made widely available immediately.
Both Pfizer and Moderna report data that an additional shot improves the effectiveness of the vaccine in adults. Pfizer and Moderna first asked for boosters in September, but the FDA advisors are cool with the idea of a booster for all adults. The FDA has narrowed the authorization to high-risk groups of people. Earlier this month, Pfizer and Moderna extend their request for wider use of their boosters.
Even so, some states – including California, Kansas, Maine, Rhode Island and Louisiana – has gone ahead of federal health authorities in recent days and has independently authorized booster shots for their adult residents.
FDA’s latest authorization comes almost two months after the agency first issued it green light for booster shots for Americans 65 years of age and older and for others considered to be at high risk for COVID-19. In September, the agency issued authority for additional footage for Pfizer, and a month later it followed with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson Vaccine.
The majority of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are in unvaccinated people. But protection against coronavirus infection in fully vaccinated people has also waned, in part because of the virus’s more contagious delta variant.
