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FDA Prepares to Authorize COVID-19 Vaccine Combination to Strengthen Protection

2021-10-20T12:41:12.462Z


Allowing the mixing of vaccines could alleviate supply problems and make it easier to give booster doses to Americans.


By Geoff Bennett and Laura Strickler -

NBC News

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to authorize the combination of COVID-19 vaccines to boost immunity, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The sources confirmed the information to The New York Times, which reported on Monday that the FDA was planning this measure.

This approach is called

mix and match,

and a study by the National Institutes of Health has shown it to be a safe and effective method.

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Sources said Tuesday that the announcement could come as soon as Wednesday.

State health authorities have been calling for this flexibility since late last month, when the FDA cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, which must be given at least six months after the initial doses.

Yomaris Pena, MD, prepares an injection of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York, on January 15, 2021. Mary Altaffer / AP

An FDA advisory panel voted last week to recommend emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson and Moderna booster vaccines.

The combination will facilitate vaccination clinics in places like nursing homes.

Instead of requiring vaccine providers to carry doses from all three companies, providers will be able to carry whatever they have in stock, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

One source noted that the process needs to move urgently to give doctors flexibility and because some people have already started receiving booster shots that are different from their initial rounds of vaccination.

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The Times reported that the government would not recommend one type over another and could still say that booster vaccines are preferable to use the same dose from the same company that they were injected with first.

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Allowing people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to receive boosters from Pfizer or Moderna means demand for the J&J vaccine could decline further and existing doses on state shelves could end up being wasted, according to state health officials. .

The NIH study of vaccine combination revealed that people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine produced stronger antibody levels after receiving boosters from Moderna or Pfizer, compared to boosters from Johnson & Johnson.

The researchers found that people who were originally vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and received the booster shot from either company produced equally strong immune responses.

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, said Tuesday on TODAY on our sister network NBC News that reports that the FDA might authorize the combination of booster vaccines were good. news.

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"From a clinical point of view, all the data indicate that mixing and matching is fine, there is no problem," said Jha, who recalled that this measure could also help in logistics, because people would not have to stick to the same type of vaccine.

More than 104 million people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the U.S. received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) .

More than 69 million people received the vaccine from Moderna and more than 15 million from Johnson & Johnson, according to the agency.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2021-10-20

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