The US FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted in favor of approving the World Health Organization's (WHO's) strain selections for the 2018-2019 northern hemisphere trivalent and quadrivalent influenza vaccines, but members nevertheless remained concerned about how to improve the overall efficacy of the vaccines.
In separate votes, panelists voted 12-0 in favor of the A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus and the A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 (H3N2)-like virus, along with the a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (B/Yamagata/16/88 lineage) as the fourth quadrivalent strain