The FDA announced late last week it will meet in January to discuss future COVID-19 vaccines. The announcement comes at a time when COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising, but acceptance of the latest booster has been low.
The agency said its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will determine whether the composition of primary doses currently available should be modified and whether booster doses should be adjusted in the future. VRBPAC also will examine the state of the pandemic, the evolution of subvariants, and the efficacy and safety of the current monovalent and bivalent vaccines. Manufacturers will discuss timelines related to vaccine composition changes.
About 80% of the U.S. population has received the primary series of COVID-19 vaccine doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But uptake of boosters has been slow. The CDC estimates only about 14% of the population has gotten the most recent shot. But despite that, the FDA said vaccines remain the best defense among the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since the initial authorizations of these vaccines, we have learned that protection wanes over time, especially as the virus rapidly mutates and new variants and subvariants emerge,” the agency said in a press release. “Therefore, it’s important to continue discussions about the optimal composition of COVID-19 vaccines for primary and booster vaccination, as well as the optimal interval for booster vaccination.”
The FDA meeting also comes at a time when the fight over the federal vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, including those in home health, continues to escalate. Last month attorneys general from 22 states petitioned the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to repeal the mandate.
In January, the Supreme Court upheld the CMS mandate requiring 20 million healthcare workers employed by federally funded agencies to get vaccinated against the virus. A little more than 87% of healthcare workers had completed the primary series of COVID-19 vaccinations last spring, according to the CDC.
