This August 2022 photo provided through Pfizer shows vials from the company’s updated production of the COVID-19 vaccine in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Updated COVID-19 vaccine boosters have arrived in Texas.
The vaccines, which the federal health government approved last week, are designed to provide greater coverage compared to the omicron variant and its subvariants BA. 5 and BA. 4, which sparked a wave of infections in the U. S. Usa this summer.
A new version, manufactured through Pfizer/BioNTech, is available to anyone over the age of 12. The other, manufactured through Moderna, is available for people over 18. If you’ve already been vaccinated or beefed up, you don’t want to stay with the same manufacturer for the new dose, officials said.
The new booster can be given two months after receiving your last booster or completing your initial vaccine circular, officials said.
Here’s everything you want to know about launching the new boosters this week.
So far, booster shots have been for the original versions of the COVID-19 vaccines that were first launched in late 2020. They were designed to combat the original or “ancestral” strain of the virus.
The new booster is bivalent, containing the mRNA vaccine designed to fight the ancestral strain, as well as the new mRNA vaccine designed to fight omicron and its subvariants. Replaces the original booster injection.
There is little information on the effectiveness of the new recalls, which were most often tested on mice before they were approved. But the available data showed that the injections provided a modest buildup of antibodies that protect against COVID-19, he said. Dr. César Arias, co-director of the Houston Methodist Infectious Disease Research Center.
“The knowledge provided for those reinforcements suggests that there is a slight build-up in the coverage of the original reinforcement,” Arias said.
Clinical studies have evaluated the protection of bivalent boosters from Pfizer and Moderna. The Pfizer study involved about 600 participants, while the fashionable study involved about 800, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The most common side effects were those seen with the original COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. They included pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site; fatigue; headache; muscle pain; chills; joint pain; and fever. Moderna participants also reported swollen lymph nodes in the same arm as the injection and nausea/vomiting.
“Since, in essence, vaccines are essentially the same, only with another Array strain. . . there is no explanation to suspect that I would see a very different-looking effect profile,” said Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious disease specialist. at UTHealth Houston and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.
Health care providers will offer the flu shot and omicron booster to patients on a single visit, officials said at a White House news conference Tuesday.
“In fact, that’s why God gave us two arms,” Dr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the White House Pandemic Response Team, said at the news conference. “One for the flu vaccine and the other for the COVID vaccine. “
The same thing happened with the original booster, noted Chang. De fact, said there were virtually no restrictions on taking the bivalent booster at the same time as some other vaccine.
A notable exception is the monkeypox vaccine. Young men who have won the monkeypox vaccine may need to wait 4 weeks before receiving the bivalent booster, according to U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. UU. De fact, studies have shown that young men are at an increased risk of central muscle inflammation, a rare side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In the past, the CDC has advised that anyone who has recently had COVID-19 wait 90 days before receiving a vaccine or booster. According to the guidelines, you are less likely to be reinfected in the short term.
“I explain that having COVID is like having a reminder. So, more or less, the same regulations apply,” Arias said.
Arias and Chang said they largely agree to recall about 3 months after an infection, though there are exceptions. You may need to get the bivalent booster faster, closer to the two-month minimum between injections, if you’re at the greatest threat of getting serious illness due to COVID-19 or if there’s a significant point of transmission in your community, they said.
Federal fitness officials specified when bivalent retirement will be allowed for children under the age of 12. Original retreats were allowed for children over the age of 5 to 11 in May; are allowed for children under the age of five.
The FDA said it expected more information from Pfizer and Moderna before making a decision on children under the age of 12. Chang said more data may be provided soon, or at least until the end of the year.
Federal fitness officials said they hoped the new recall would provide greater coverage over time. The goal is to get to the point where Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19 every year, the same way they get a flu shot every year, Jha told The Associated Press last week.
Experts have warned that it is difficult to know if a variant will emerge. The emergence of delta, omicron and BA. 5 strains has led to an accumulation of infections.
However, Chang believes there is reason to be optimistic. The BA. 5 subvariant still accounts for more than 88% of cases in the United States. Another strain being tracked is BA. 4. 6, which accounts for more than 8% of cases. It’s also a subvariant of omicron and is what bivalent vaccines are aimed at, he says.
Chang also believes that exposure to more strains of the virus through the bivalent vaccine may expand the immune formula in a way that offers broader coverage as opposed to covid-19 strains in the long term.
“In general, and this is true for all vaccines, the more you can disclose your immunity to variants, the broader your immune response will be,” he said.
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