FDA gives greenlight to Moderna, Pfizer's updated COVID-19 boosters
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A new COVID-19 booster cleared a hurdle on Wednesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the greenlight to an updated version of the vaccine.
This is a modified version of the original vaccine designed to better target the COVID-19 variant that's circulating now.
The COVID-19 variant, BA.5, continues to be the dominant strain circulating across the United States. Last week, it caused nearly nine out of 10 new infections, according to CDC estimates.
"I would really love to be ahead of this variant this season," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.
That's what the updated COVID-19 boosters are aimed at doing. It's a bivalent vaccine, containing some of the original coronavirus along with elements of the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants.
"As we have updated these boosters for the fall, the data that we are looking at is related to very, very small changes in the mRNA sequence," Walensky said, "and really shouldn't impact safety at all."
Both Moderna and Pfizer have been given initial emergency use authorization from the FDA for their updated boosters, but there is some criticism that the U.S. government is moving too quickly and without enough human data.
"There's always a question here of being too slow or too fast," Walensky said, "and I think one of the challenges is if we wait for those data in human data, not just mice data, in human data, we will be using what I would be using what I would consider to be a very outdated vaccine."
On Thursday, a CDC advisory committee will decide whether or not to recommend the new booster, then the director will make the final decision if it will be made available to the public.