Doctor: New omicron-specific booster shots could limit COVID-19 mutation
The new booster shot could be a game changer in the fight against COVID-19. The booster, designed to target the omicron variants, is expected to be approved as soon as September.
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Researchers are amazed at how quickly the new booster was developed and it will be coming at a great time, hopefully preventing a lot of COVID-19 infections during flu season and beyond.
"This is really going to be an important step in our continuing progress to control COVID-19," Pekosz said.
Both Moderna and Pfizer's omicron-specific booster shots for COVID should be ready in September.
Dr. Andy Pekosz, virologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it's a bivalent vaccine, meaning it has the original COVID-19 booster plus one that targets all of the omicron variants.
"So, the hope here is that we boost all of the previous immune responses that we know recognized other variants and now get better protection against the currently circulating omicron," Pekosz said.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still working on guidance and recommendations on who should get it and when, but if parents and their children haven't gotten their regular booster yet, don't wait for the new one to come out.
"At least it will be all adults in the US will be recommended to get a booster in the fall as it becomes available and then as the formulations for younger children become available, they'll be asked to come in for a booster as well," Pekosz said.
Pekosz predicts supply will be limited at first but should open up pretty quickly with shots widely available in October. He said the shot will limit the numbers of infections and prevent severe disease, but it could also be pivotal in preventing new mutations to help get COVID-19 under control.
"This bivalent vaccine should cover a lot of the known places the virus has mutated, so we're sort of building walls around the virus and not allowing it to move in certain directions so this should be at least a strategy to limit what the virus can do in terms of evolution, if we can get enough vaccine booster out there to enough people," Pekosz said.
Pekosz said Novavax is also coming out with a version of this same vaccine soon.