A team of US Food and Drug Administration advisers met on Wednesday to discuss how and if additional vaccine boosters for COVID-19 will be used, as data from Israel showed that a fourth dose reduced the incidence of serious illness in the elderly. External FDA experts are not expected to vote on any specific vaccines, but the agency said their discussions could help shape a strategy for future use of booster doses. The data presented to the panel showed that vaccines are losing much of their effectiveness in preventing Omicron-type infections, although they have been better at preventing serious diseases. This could mean that the composition of future amplifiers may need to be modified to align with the new variants, the FDA said. These concerns, and data that have shown declining vaccine protection over time, prompted U.S. health officials to approve a second booster dose of Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines for people 50 years of age and older and immunocompromised. “This debate today is a much bigger debate – it’s a debate about what we do for the whole population and what we do when we think the virus has evolved further,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA Biological Assessment Center. and Research. A fourth dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine reduced rates of severe COVID-19 in people aged 60 and over, but offered only short-term additional protection against infection, according to an Israeli study released Tuesday. The Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
