US Health Authority Supports The Use Of An Omicron Variant Booster Vaccine Designated

Illustration of a COVID-19 vaccination. (Wikimedia Commons/MDGovpics)

JAKARTA - The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday recommended the redesigned use of COVID-19 booster injections, for people 12 years of age and older targeting the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the coronavirus.

The green light for the redesigned use of Omicron COVID boosters will allow millions of re-equipped injections, launched over the weekend as part of a national re-vaccination campaign.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice voted 13 to 1, supporting boosters updated by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

"Updated COVID-19 boosters are formulated to better protect against the most recent COVID-19 variant", CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed an updated vaccination, often called a bivalent shot, which targets the dominant BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants and the original virus.

FDA officials said they believed updated injections should be available to a wider population than previous boosters, as they could help younger people avoid long COVID, which could make them suffer weakening symptoms for months.

CDC and FDA officials said they believed injections would boost immunity against the virus ahead of winter, as infections tended to increase as people spent more time indoors, where the virus was more easily transmitted.

During Thursday's meeting, CDC officials advised people with COVID to wait at least until they complete their isolation to receive a booster and could consider waiting three months.

Vaccine makers have yet to complete human trials for a newly approved booster, and some members of the advisory committee have expressed objections to the lack of data. Most of the available data on the redesigned booster comes from laboratory and animal research.

"I understand we need a better vaccine because obviously we still have a lot of COVID despite having been vaccinated," said committee member Dr. Pablo Sanchez, a professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University, who rejected the recommendation.

"But I struggled with making recommendations for bivalent vaccines that have not been studied in humans."

The FDA said in June it would not require research testing human injections for authorization, similar to how the annual changes to flu vaccines are cleaned.