The WEB MD website says the updated doses are designed to provide stronger protection once morest the BA.4 and BA.5 sub variants of the Omicron mutant that continues to cause tens of thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths every day in the United States.
These boosters will be part of a campaign launched by the federal authorities, which will be launched within days, to persuade Americans to bolster their immune defenses before a possible increase in cases of Corona infection with the arrival of cooler weather in the fall.
After obtaining emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, booster doses now need approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its advisors.
And if all goes as expected, some potions may be available this weekend.
The new boosters, which are intended to be given as single doses, will be available in the same places where previous boosters and vaccines were available, in doctors’ offices, hospitals, pharmacies and community health clinics. The updated boosters were purchased by the federal government and will be free to consumers.
The CDC is expected to recommend doses for the same ages as those authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), i.e. 12 years and older for new doses from Pfizer and its German partner Biontech, and 18 years and older for the Moderna booster.
Officials are expected to consider using the booster dose for younger children at a later date.
Anyone who has received the initial two-dose series of mRNA or single-dose mRNA vaccines will be eligible, regardless of whether they have received any of the recommended booster doses.
The US Food and Drug Administration said that people who have recently received their initial or booster vaccine should wait two months before receiving the updated vaccine. Getting the new dose too soon can limit its effectiveness.
The side effects of booster doses are not expected to differ from those associated with the current vaccine, which include redness and swelling at the vaccine site, as well as fatigue, headache and muscle aches, according to the CDC, and more serious side effects are rare.
Older or immunocompromised people should get the booster as soon as they qualify or regarding a month following recovering from a recent infection to reduce the likelihood of severe disease, according to doctors who spoke to the Wall Street Journal.
Doctors say that waiting for at least two months following the last vaccination once morest corona will help strengthen the immune response.
Doctors expect cases of infection to rise as temperatures drop and more people gather indoors with each other.
They say another variant is likely to emerge, so doctors warn that waiting for cases to rise once more might increase the risk of recurrence of the disease or complications.
Yes, but recipients of both doses are likely to feel a little more pain than usual, Dr. Abhinash Virk, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic, tells The Wall Street Journal, but the process is otherwise safe.
Previous research indicated that “obtaining a booster dose of Moderna or Pfizer following a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine produced more antibodies compared to a second dose of Johnson & Johnson.”
And US health officials say, “The new booster doses of corona are similar in some ways to annual updates of seasonal influenza vaccines.
