IMMUNIZATION. The FDA decision updated the emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. | Photo: Efe.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a third booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday. It may be taken by people 65 and older and adults at risk of serious illness, in an effort to strengthen protection for the most vulnerable Americans against the delta variant.
The last: In addition to older Americans, boosters should be available to individuals 18 to 64 years of age at high risk of severe coronavirus disease and those “whose frequent institutional or occupational exposure” to COVID-19 puts them at high risk for serious complications.
- The agency reported that the additional dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine must be administered six months after the standard application of two injections.
- The FDA, in issuing the emergency authorization, took an approach similar to that recommended last Friday by the agency’s external panel of vaccine experts.
What do they say? “The FDA considered the committee’s comments and conducted its own comprehensive review of the data presented to arrive at today’s decision,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biological Research and Evaluation, in a statement.
- “We will continue to analyze the data submitted to the FDA related to the use of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines and make further decisions as appropriate based on the data,” added Marks.
- “Today’s action demonstrates that the science and data currently available continue to guide FDA decision-making,” said FDA Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock in a statement.
Main source of the news: The Washington Post.
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