FDA, health experts to meet, discuss COVID-19 booster strategy

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a panel of health experts will meet Wednesday to discuss the future of COVID-19 boosters in the U.S. and emerging variants of the virus.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will host the all-day meeting with the health experts to discuss questions and concerns regarding vaccinations and the virus.

They will address concerns about the practicality of getting additional doses of the vaccines every few months and look into how frequently they should change the composition of the vaccine based on variants and their dominance, according to briefing documents released by the FDA.

The committee aims to develop a framework for a long-term booster strategy.

On Tuesday, White House chief medial adviser Anthony Fauci said the National Institutes of Health has already launched a trial to study different kinds of COVID-19 boosters.

“What we’ll be doing is assessing different fourth doses that are either ancestral strain or variant-specific in the first phase of the study,” Fauci said, according to a White House press brief. “In the second phase of the study, we’re planning on looking at different vaccine platforms for the purpose of getting a great durability than we currently have.”

The meeting comes after the FDA authorized a second booster dose for anyone age 50 and older at least four months after the first booster.

The meeting will start on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.