Public health experts are learning toward an additional booster dose, but only for certain people
a fourth mRNA vaccine dose for people with weakened immune systems, including transplant patients and those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, and other countries have similar guidelines. Israeli health officials have gone one step further; on Jan. 22, as cases and hospitalizations crept upward, the country authorized a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine for health care workers and people over 60 years old.
But whether everyone needs an additional vaccine dose, and whether or not we can anticipate getting one every year or every few years, depends on what we want the vaccines to accomplish. The vaccines were not designed to prevent people from getting infected by the virus, but to protect them from getting extremely sick with COVID-19, and to keep them from needing hospitalization and intensive care. Remembering that goal, says Dr.
Offit, who serves on the FDA vaccine advisory committee of independent experts that reviews data and makes recommendations to the FDA about whether or not a vaccine is safe and effective, says that trying to protect the world’s population from mild disease with continued booster doses isn’t a realistic or practical public health goal.
He and others also don’t anticipate continuing to boost as new variants crop up. Up to this point, that strategy came out of the urgent need to tamp down the virus as quickly as possible in as many people as possible. But it’s not a durable or practical game plan over the long term. “We’ve been chasing our tails with every variant, and we will perpetually be behind [the virus],” says Dr.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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