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WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (AP) — U.S. health officials want to make the COVID-19 vaccination more like the annual flu shot.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed a way to streamline future vaccination efforts, allowing most adults and children to get an annual shot to protect against the mutated virus.
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That means Americans will no longer have to keep track of how many shots they’ve had, or how many months have passed since their last booster shot.
The proposal comes at a time when boosters have become a hard sell. While more than 80% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, only 16% of those eligible have received the latest booster, approved in August.
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The FDA will ask its panel of outside vaccine experts for comments at a meeting Thursday.
The agency is expected to consider their recommendations when deciding on future vaccine requirements for manufacturers.
In documents posted online, FDA scientists said many Americans now have “sufficient pre-existing immunity” to the coronavirus as a result of vaccination, infection or both.
According to the agency, that baseline of protection should be enough to shift to annual boosters against the latest circulating strains and make COVID-19 vaccination more like the annual flu shot.
For adults and very young children with weakened immune systems, a combination of two doses may be needed to provide protection.
FDA scientists and vaccine companies will study vaccinations, infection rates and other data to decide who should get a single shot or two.
The FDA will also ask its panel to vote on whether all vaccines should target the same strain.
This step is required to make vaccines interchangeable, eliminating the current complex system of primary vaccinations and boosters.
Pfizer and Moderna’s initial shots, known as the main series, are on a strain that first emerged in 2020 and quickly swept the world.
The update booster introduced last fall has also been tweaked to target the once-dominant omicron relatives.
Under the FDA proposal, the agency, independent experts and manufacturers would decide each year which strains to target by early summer, allowing several months by fall to produce and roll out an updated vaccine.
This is much the same approach that has long been used to select strains for the annual flu vaccine.
Ultimately, FDA officials said, moving to an annual schedule would make it easier to facilitate future vaccination campaigns, which could ultimately boost vaccination rates nationwide.
The first two doses of the COVID vaccine, in either variant, provided strong protection against severe disease and death, but less protection against mild infections.
Experts continue to debate whether the latest round of boosters significantly increases protection, especially among young, healthy Americans. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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