Updated COVID-19 Vaccines for Fall 2023: Availability, Eligibility, and Composition

NEW YORK.- The first updated COVID-19 vaccines for this fall season are expected to be available by the end of September, once both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approve the new doses.

These new vaccines are designed to fight XBB variants, strains of the virus descended from the original Omicron variant, which are now the most common form in circulation.

Three vaccine makers — Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax — are expected to offer the revised doses this fall, and virtually all children and adults will be eligible to receive them.

The introduction of the new vaccines will mark three major changes in the United States’ response to the virus: an end to government-purchased vaccine stockpiles, a simplification of who is eligible to receive doses, and a significant change in the composition of vaccines. vaccines.

What makes the new COVID-19 vaccines different?

Following a meeting of its outside advisers in June, the FDA announced it would ask vaccine makers to switch to using only one component in their formulations targeting the XBB.1.5 variant, in the hope of broadening immunity.

This change differs from the “bivalent” composition used in the last round of boosts, which combined two components: one aimed at increasing immunity against the parent strain of the virus and another targeting the Omicron BA.4/5 variant.

While newer descendants of the XBB variant have emerged, including the EG.5 strain, which is rapidly gaining ground, experts say these variants remain closely related and the updated vaccine formulation should offer protection.

When will the new COVID-19 vaccines be available?

Although the new vaccines are expected to be ready by the end of September, it could be October before they are widely available to all who want them.

Two steps will be needed before new vaccines can debut on the US commercial market: FDA approval and new CDC recommendations.

The FDA is expected to grant emergency approval or authorization to the three new COVID-19 vaccines in the next two months. Pfizer and Moderna could be the first to receive the FDA license, having completed their submissions to the agency in June.

“What we hope is to have approval at the end of August. And we already have products ready,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told investors on August 1.

Novavax has not yet completed its submission for a new emergency use authorization for its updated vaccine, but plans to do so in the coming weeks.

Who will be eligible to receive the new COVID-19 vaccines?

Unlike previous vaccinations in the pandemic, federal officials say they have been working in recent months to simplify eligibility for future rounds of doses, similar to the annual flu shot.

For adolescents and adults, Americans will be able to choose any of the three updated vaccines.

For children 2 years and older, the CDC’s preliminary vaccination recommendations released in June will allow for a single new dose of Pfizer or Moderna to catch up. Children as young as 6 months may still be candidates for two or three doses.

“The intent is to harmonize all dosages, all ages, same composition. So in the fall, that would be the 2023-2024 formula, it would be an XBB.1.5,” said FDA’s Dr. David Kaslow in June at the meeting from the CDC.

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2023-08-19 16:37:52
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