The US has approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising cases of coronavirus around the country, the Food and Drug Administration said on Monday.
The FDA said it had approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which can be administered even to people who never previously received a Covid-19 vaccination.
Vaccinations with the new shots could begin as soon as this week, Associated Press reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which must also sign off on the vaccines, is due to meet on Tuesday.
“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of Covid-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Dr Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
“The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”
As with earlier vaccinations, the new round of shots are cleared for adults and children as young as age 6 months.
Starting at age five, most people can get a single dose even if they have never had a prior Covid-19 shot, per the FDA. Younger children might need additional doses depending on their history of Covid-19 infections and vaccinations.
Hospitalizations from Covid-19 have crept up in recent weeks, although the rise is lower than the same time last year. In the week ending 26 August just over 17,400 people were hospitalized from Covid-19, NBC reported, up 16% from the week before.
In August, two hospitals in New York state re-introduced mandatory masking after an increase in Covid-19 cases, while the Lionsgate film studio reinstated a mask mandate for half its employees in its flagship Los Angeles offices.
That same month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that it had discovered a new Covid-19 variant and warned high-risk individuals to resume wearing masks.
The variant, BA 2.86, was detected during monitoring of wastewater, the CDC said. It said it was too soon to tell if BA 2.86 could lead to more severe illness than other variants, but reported “reassuring” results of early research which showed that existing antibodies work against the BA 2.86 variant.