A CDC advisory committee of doctors and nurses will recommend today who should get the latest version of the COVID vaccine.
The vote was scheduled for 3:40 p.m. ET, according to the committee’s published agenda. The meeting was streamed online.
Today’s recommendation is the second-to-last step needed before the new version of the shots can become available. The final step is a sign-off by CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH. Vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have said they are ready to make the shots available.
On Monday, the FDA approved the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech updated vaccines for people ages 6 months or older. In an announcement of the approval, the FDA stated that the new version of the shot better targets the currently circulating variants of the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, and will “provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.”
The topics of today’s 6-hour CDC advisory committee meeting include current variants and virus lineages, vaccine effectiveness, an “economic analysis of COVID-19 vaccination,” safety, and a program that provides free vaccines to people without insurance or who are under-insured. There will also be a public comment period.
The committee is expected to say who should get the vaccine, and that recommendation could be a universal one or could be based on a person’s risk level, such as whether they are older, a health-care worker, are pregnant, or have a lowered immune system, Bill Schaffner, MD, told CNN. Schaffner is an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, and he also represents the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases at meetings of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Sources:
CDC: “Final – Agenda, Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30329, September 12, 2023.”
FDA: “FDA Takes Action on Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines to Better Protect Against Currently Circulating Variants.”
CNN: “CDC advisers to weigh recommendations for updated Covid-19 vaccines.”
Source link : https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/996353?src=rss
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Publish date : 2023-09-12 20:31:28
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