Food and Drug Administration authorizes reformulated COVID-19 booster shot for the fall
. Both were authorized for use at least 2 months after any previous COVID-19 shots.
"We see this as the next step to provide broader coverage for a virus that mutates very rapidly," said Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer for vaccine R&D. It should prevent both infections and severe disease for a time, but it's not clear for how long. The original vaccine still works well to prevent severe disease, she said, but the new booster should help reduce the number of infections as well as minimize severe disease. In animal studies there are"nice neutralizing antibody responses" to the booster, Anderson added.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said he thinks the new boosters will be safe and provide broader protection against omicron variants. It's not clear whether shots will be needed every six months indefinitely, Pekosz said, or whether most people will eventually build up enough immune protection to avoid severe disease and only those at high risk will need to keep boosting.
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