The United States authorized the injection of a third dose of Pfizer's vaccine against Covid-19 on Wednesday.
This authorization is valid for people aged 65 and over as well as for those at “risk”, including because of their employment.
This booster dose can be administered from six months after the second injection, the United States Medicines Agency (FDA) announced.
The booster dose is the same dosage as the first two and is permitted under emergency authorization.
Between the ages of 18 and 64, those eligible for this booster dose are those at "high risk" of developing a severe form of the disease, including due to "frequent exposure" to the virus from exercise. their profession or their situation.
This definition can include "health care workers, teachers and school personnel, workers in supermarkets, homeless shelters or prisons, and others," said acting chief of the FDA, Janet. Woodcock.
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A committee of experts from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the country's main federal public health agency, is in turn due to meet on Thursday to discuss the matter.
These experts will have to specify in particular who should be included in the term "high risk" according to them, before the CDC publishes their detailed recommendations for the professionals who will administer these third doses.
Moderna and Johnson & Johnson could quickly be used as a recall
If the categories of the population concerned are potentially very broad, this decision by the FDA remains a setback for the administration of President Joe Biden, who announced in mid-August that the boosters could be administered to all American adults without distinction. The government has since been widely criticized for appearing to anticipate the decision of the scientific authorities, and has been accused of having caused confusion.
The FDA ultimately chose to follow the advice of its advisory committee. The latter, composed in particular of epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists, voted last week to limit the injection of a booster to certain categories of populations, in particular the elderly and health personnel. This panel justified its opinion in particular by a lack of data and concerns about the risks of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, in male adolescents and young adults.
The FDA decision is an "important step in the current fight against the disease," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. However, his company had filed an application for authorization of a booster dose from the age of 16. The government adviser on the Covid-19 crisis, immunologist Anthony Fauci, rejected the idea that the decision of health experts was a setback for the government. “This has always been suspended for the evaluation of all data (…) by the committee” of the FDA, he said. According to him, the decision on a booster dose for the other two vaccines authorized in the United States, those of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, could be made in the coming weeks.Moderna submitted early data to the FDA in early September showing the effectiveness of a booster dose, which still needs to be analyzed. Johnson & Johnson just delivered its data on Tuesday.
Some immunocompromised people may already receive a third dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines in the United States since early August.
Other countries, such as France or Spain, have already launched recall campaigns aimed at part of their population.
In Israel, the government has gone further: anyone over the age of 12 can receive a third dose of Pfizer's remedy.
This measure is frowned upon by the World Health Organization, denouncing vaccine inequalities between rich and poor countries.
According to her, it would be both more ethical, but also more pragmatic from a public health point of view, to first vaccinate as many people as possible in the world.