Ahead of a planned booster vaccination campaign this fall, the U.S. government has lock supply The Moderna Covid-19 vaccine is designed to protect against the original strain of the virus as well as the now widespread omicron subvariant.
Under the terms announced Friday, Moderna will provide the government with 66 million doses of a booster vaccine candidate. The contract includes an option to purchase up to 234 million doses of boosters. Moderna could pay up to $1.74 billion, depending on the doses ordered.
The Moderna vaccine, called Spikevax, FDA approved January for those 18 and older. The vaccine is designed to address the original strain of the novel coronavirus.The company has also been developing two different booster candidates, each a bivalent vaccine against two different strains. Both new vaccines protect against the original strain. One of these, mRNA-1273.222, will also contain the BA.4/5 omicron strain that predominates in the U.S., in line with the enhanced guidance the FDA established last month. The second enhancer candidate, mRNA-1273.214, addresses the BA.1 sub-variant, which may be more applicable to the rest of the world.
The contract supply of the Moderna booster is in addition to Government reaches deal for 105 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine bivalent booster, and the option to purchase up to 195 million additional doses. Both boosters require authorization from the FDA and a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.If these new lenses pass the convening of both agencies, they may be ready to go live in early fall, the Department of Health and Human Services said. Say. The New York Times quoted unnamed sources . report The Biden administration plans to deliver an updated Covid-19 vaccine in September.
As of now, the booster has been authorized by the FDA for people 50 years and older and 12 years and older with diseases that compromise the immune system. The Times reported that some federal health officials are advocating for expanding booster eligibility for the current vaccine before a recombinant version is rolled out due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases. But after the companies assured government officials they could deliver the bivalent booster by mid-September, the FDA and CDC decided it would be better to focus on the fall vaccination campaign with a new version of the vaccine, The Times reported. .
According to the CDC, 603.7 million doses of vaccine Has been vaccinated in the U.S. The agency calculates that 78.8% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose and 67.2% of the population has been fully vaccinated (defined as those who have received a second dose of a double-dose vaccine or a single dose of the J&J vaccine) . Of those fully vaccinated, 107.9 million received booster shots, the CDC reported. More than half of the booster-eligible population has yet to receive a booster shot, according to the latest data from the CDC.
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