DJ Covid-19 Booster Shots Get Support from Expert Panel

By Felicia Schwartz and Jared S. Hopkins

Health experts advising the U.S. government on vaccines expressed initial support for giving booster shots to people vaccinated against Covid-19, starting with healthcare workers, nursing-home residents and others immunized earliest.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, on Monday indicated their agreement with the Biden administration's plans to offer the extra doses. Yet they said the priority should remain increasing vaccinations of unvaccinated people, and that boosters shouldn't distract or impede from doing that.

When giving boosters, some panel members added, the priority should be preventing severe disease in people at highest risk of becoming sick with Covid-19, as opposed to preventing infections.

"It would be important for us to focus our efforts on preventing severe disease because variants are going to continue to emerge over time and will evade our ability to prevent all infections," said Grace Lee, ACIP's chairwoman, who is a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at Stanford University.

The group said it intended to vote on formally recommending boosters after they are cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and would reconvene soon to discuss additional data about their efficacy.

The ACIP, which is composed of physicians and other experts in infectious diseases, immunology and public health, advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and develops recommendations for use of vaccines generally in the U.S.

It had previously recommended use of the authorized Covid-19 vaccines. Also on Monday, the panel voted 14-0 to recommend the two-dose shot from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE now that it has been f ully approved by the FDA for people over 16 years old.

Dr. Lee said the panel issued the endorsement with six months of follow up on clinical-trial subjects as well as many observational studies around the world.

Panel members expressed hope their latest endorsement would help persuade vaccine hesitant people to get the shot.

Some health experts and administration officials have embraced boosters as the contagious Delta variant has spread, driving up cases in many areas, and as data emerges suggesting the extra dose may shore up any waning immunity boost protection. Some other experts, however, say the evidence isn't definitive.

The panel discussed boosters after reviewing some data about the efficacy of the extra dose.

Some panel members questioned whether boosters were needed because of waning immunity or the spread of the more infectious Delta variant, which the experts said could potentially necessitate a different shot.

Sara Oliver, a CDC medical officer presenting on Monday, said it may be impossible to disentangle the two.

Some panel members said they wanted to see guidelines for boosters include an expanded definition of who is at higher risk, considering factors such as race and ethnicity and paying attention to populations such as the incarcerated who have experienced worse outcomes.

The Biden administration earlier this month rolled out a plan for booster shots expected to begin in late September.

The FDA is expected to approve a Covid-19 booster shot for vaccinated adults starting at least six months after the previous dose rather than the eight-month gap they had previously announced.

Experts and government officials presenting to the panel also released updated data on myocarditis and anaphylaxis, two conditions associated with messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and from Moderna Inc. Myocarditis is an inflammatory heart condition, while anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction.

John Su, who is part of the CDC's vaccine-safety reporting team, said there have been 742 cases in people under 30 years met the CDC case definition of myocarditis or the related condition myopericarditis after receiving mRNA vaccines, none that have resulted in death.

Of the cases, 701 people were hospitalized, 667 were discharged and of those 515 or 77% are known to have recovered from symptoms at the time of the report.

Some 18 people are still hospitalized, including 5 in the ICU, Dr. Su said. There are an additional 494 cases under review. The cases continue to be seen more in males, and more take place after the second dose.

Nicola Klein, director of the vaccine study group at Kaiser Permanente, presented data showing that anaphylaxis or allergic reactions are happening in about five out of every million people 12 years and older given an mRNA vaccine. She said the rate is slightly higher than what is typically seen in people getting other vaccines such as the flu shot, which has a rate of one or two per million.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 30, 2021 18:18 ET (22:18 GMT)

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