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To Avoid ‘Booster Fatigue,’ Future COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Should Target Severe Disease

 
• By Brenda Sandburg

CDC’s ACIP members say goal for now should not be preventing infection. FDA’s Doran Fink notes that the agency will act diligently on EUA of vaccines in children under five once it receives submissions, cites the complexity of reviewing Novavax’s EUA request for its vaccine.

COVID-19 booster
CDC advisory committee says COVID-19 vaccine booster shots should not aim to prevent infection • Source: Alamy

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to get their input on the best approach to COVID-vaccine booster shots. ACIP members emphatically agreed that the goal for future doses of vaccines should be to prevent severe disease and death rather than prevention of infection.

“We should not chase the rainbow” of hoping currently available vaccines “could prevent infection, transmission and even mild disease because we’ve learned that that is just not possible,” Sarah Long, professor of pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine, said

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