U.S. health officials on Wednesday approved the new version of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID vaccines for the ómicron variant, with a view to quickly launching a new immunization campaign.
The two updated vaccines were authorized for a booster dose, starting at age 12 from Pfizer and starting at age 18, the U.S. food agency, the FDA, said in a statement.
The new generation of vaccines targets both the original strain of COVID-19 and the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of omicron.
Therefore, they should “provide greater protection against the omicron variant currently circulating,” the FDA wrote.
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Health announced it had purchased 105 million doses of Pfizer and 66 million doses of Moderna for use during the fall and winter.
The vaccines have not yet been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main U.S. public health agency.
Read: COVID-19: What is known about BA.4 and BA.5, the omicron subvariants that are driving an increase in cases
The CDC convened a committee of independent experts to discuss the issue Thursday.
After making these consultations, the director of the agency, Rochelle Walensky, will be in charge of giving it the final green light.
This new version of the immunizers could be available next week in the country.
The vaccines currently circulating were designed to protect against the initial strain of the virus that was first reported in late 2019 in Wuhan, China.
But little by little they have been proving less effective against the variants that were appearing over time, due to the rapid evolution of the virus.
Unlike the alpha and delta variants, which eventually gave way, omicron and its subvariants have gradually dominated infections in 2022 worldwide.
Read: Neither omicron nor BA.2: no COVID variant ‘escapes’ PCR tests
Pfizer and Moderna have also submitted an application for authorisation for this updated version of their vaccine to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
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