Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisers on Thursday unanimously recommended an updated COVID-19 booster vaccine.
The panel said a new bivalent shot is necessary to provide immunity against emerging subvariants of the virus.
The current vaccine targets the original strain and omicron subvariants from winter, the FDA said.
A new vaccine would focus on an undetermined XBB variant.
The FDA will make the final determination and has the option to reject the recommendation.
“This season will be very telling whether Covid settles into a seasonal pattern or not,” said Ruth Link-Gelles, a senior epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), according to a report from NBC News.
Drug makers would need an FDA decision soon to have the medicine available for fall and winter.
“I think that’s what today’s discussion is about — how to best to come up with what goes into people’s arms to offer the best protection during a period when we think we’ll have waning immunity,” Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief, said, according to The New York Times. He added that the winter may also bring “further evolution of the virus.”
Americans have received a booster dose since 2022.
“We’re concerned that we may have another wave of COVID-19 during a time when the virus has further evolved, immunity of the population has waned further, and we move indoors for wintertime,” Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s vaccine division, told The Hill.
David Kaslow, director of the FDA Office of Vaccines Research and Review, said, “COVID-19 vaccines should induce antibodies that neutralize XBB descendent lineage viruses.”
“First, we need a periodic update. Second, it’s time to move from the current bivalent to a monovalent,” Kaslow was quoted as saying by ContagionLive.com.
The advisory committee previously recommended a move toward a unified vaccine in June.
“At this stage of the pandemic, data support simplifying the use of the authorized mRNA bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, and the agency believes that this approach will help encourage future vaccination,” Marks said then, according to Patientcareonline.com.