FDA approves new Covid vaccines amid summer surge in cases

in the middle of summer The surge of COVID-19 To prevent infections, the US Food and Drug Administration recently approved updated mRNA vaccines that more closely target Currently circulating variants Giving information about the corona virus, Dr.

The latest vaccine, from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, targets a variant of Omicron called KP.2, one of several so-called “FLiRT variants.” are collectively responsible for the current covid waveIt will likely take a few weeks for the new vaccines to reach pharmacies and doctors’ offices.

“Given the population’s waning immunity from previous exposure to the virus and prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement Thursday.

The new 2024-2025 formula is meant to increase protection against hospitalization and death due to Covid. In 2023, more than 916,300 people were hospitalized due to Covid-19 and more than 75,500 people died from the virus in the US alone. Vaccination may also protect against long Covid, a chronic condition that lasts at least three months after infection.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends new vaccine Everyone 6 months of age and olderWhether they have ever taken the Covid-19 vaccine before or not.

Like the influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2 is constantly changing. And just as flu vaccines are updated each year to adapt to the changing structure of the virus, COVID vaccines are being updated too. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, says SARS-CoV-2 is changing faster than the flu virus, making it difficult to predict which variants will become dominant by the time a vaccine arrives. “It’s changing into variants more rapidly than the flu,” she says.

The FDA’s green light comes after an advisory committee unanimously recommended in June that manufacturers develop an updated COVID vaccine for this fall. Based on the evidence at the time, FDA advisers initially recommended that the new vaccines target a lineage called JN.1, which is an offshoot of Omicron. But the agency said that vaccine is still not available for sale. updated its guidanceVaccine makers have been asked to target the KP2 strain, a descendant of the JN1 variant, to more closely match the prevalent variants.

The final version of the Covid vaccine was given the green light by the FDA on September 11, 2023. That formula targeted the XBB.1.5 variant, which was the dominant variant circulating in the US during the first half of 2023. The virus has changed significantly since then, and the currently circulating FLiRT variant is believed to be more contagious and dodges the immune system more effectively than previous versions of the virus.

If you’ve recently had a COVID-19 infection, the CDC says you may want to consider Delaying your vaccine dose by three months,

“Most of the time, we recommend getting both the COVID and flu vaccines in late September, October, to keep people protected during the winter months,” says Rosha McCoy, MD, a pediatrician and senior director of health care affairs at the Association of American Medical Colleges. “Certainly, if someone is high-risk, or is going to be in a high-risk situation, they should get it earlier.”

Typically, the biggest surges of respiratory viruses occur in the winter. But Covid peaks in both winter and summer, and the current summer surge may be due to the emergence of new variants and waning protection from previous vaccines.

“Any natural immunity or vaccine immunity has reached its lowest point since 2023,” Hudson says. “It’s a perfect storm for a more infectious form of COVID.”