This fall, vaccine manufacturers will begin releasing coronavirus-boosting vaccines, better suited to combat the current phase of the pandemic. Two days after outside experts voted in favor of a new vaccine adapted to protect against omicron, the Food and Drug Administration announced that the drop shots would include a component of BA.4 and BA.5, sub-variants of omicron that are gaining ground in the United States. States. The change shows that the FDA is trying to be more agile in its efforts to keep up with a changing virus. The exact formula has not yet been tested in humans, but studies have shown that vaccines tuned to combat an earlier version of omicron moderately increased the short-term immune response in humans compared to more vaccines in the original. The body will depend in part on this data as it examines the new vaccines. The FDA advised companies on Thursday to create a two-component vaccine for a booster campaign for the fall. One part of the vaccine will be the original formula, based on the version of the virus that spread worldwide in early 2020. The other part will be based on the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants that currently make up half of the strains that are sequenced in the United States. It is very likely that BA.4 and BA.5 will be overshadowed by new variants by the fall, but the hope is that a new intake will help boost immunity, as it is closer to where the virus is today. A Pfizer scientist showed data to FDA advisers on Tuesday that in mice, a vaccine based on these versions of the micron appeared to elicit a stronger immune response. Monitoring of the coronavirus vaccine For a year and a half, coronavirus vaccines based on the initial version of the virus provide strong protection, especially against serious diseases. But immunity diminishes over time and the virus has proven to be cunning, giving birth to a growing Greek alphabet of new variants that are more contagious and adept at slipping away from the human immune system. “As we move into the fall and winter, it is important to have safe and effective vaccine boosters that can provide protection against circulating and emerging variants to prevent the most serious effects of covid-19,” the FDA said in a statement. The experts were anxious that such a subsequent decision should be made on the basis of very limited data. It is possible that the change could offer a detectable increase in protection of people from serious diseases and possibly infections, but it is not certain. “I think the FDA is making a better guess here about what they think is the right thing to do, and it may or may not work,” said John Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We do not know and we have no real way of knowing.” The modified vaccine will be used as a booster. People who are still getting their first vaccines will continue to receive the original version of the vaccine. People who have not been vaccinated or boosted should not postpone vaccination in the hope of getting a new vaccine, especially given the high levels of transmission, said an FDA official who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak. People will still be potentially eligible for the souvenir in the fall and all vaccines are best for protection against serious illness and hospitalization. The federal government announced on Thursday that it had agreed to buy 105 million doses of the Pfizer restart vaccine for $ 3.2 billion. At $ 30.50 per installment, this is a premium compared to the original contracts the government made for the initial vaccine in 2020, when the vaccines were $ 19.50 per installment. Pfizer said the price of its vaccine is likely to rise after the pandemic and that may not be the ceiling. “We expect this to be only the second pricing step between pandemic pricing and future commercial pricing,” SVB Securities Research analysts wrote in a note analyzing the announcement. Moderna President Stephen Hoge told an FDA advisory committee that his company would need by the end of October or early November to develop a vaccine based on omicron BA.4 and BA.5 versions. It was not clear on Thursday what the company’s timetable would be for delivering renewed installments to the United States.
