COVID-19 vaccines may undergo major overhaul this fall
Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - 15:13
in Health & Medicine
Earlier this year, U.S. regulators settled on a new strategy for COVID-19 vaccines . Like the annual flu shot, the vaccines will be updated each year based on the virus’ evolution, then rolled out in the fall. Accordingly, on 15 June, advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will weigh which strain or strains of SARS-CoV-2 should make up the next iteration of vaccine, so that the agency can greenlight a version for companies to mass-produce. Regulators may well jettison the original SARS-CoV-2 strain that emerged in China and is long extinct—but which people are still being vaccinated against today. Many scientists favor eliminating it. The ancestral strain “should go out of the formulation,” says...