According to a World Health Organization vaccine advisory panel, Covid-19 booster doses are not currently advised for those at low to medium risk of developing a serious illness, much alone annually.

It suggested that, in the short to medium term, governments concentrate on strengthening those who are at high risk, such as the elderly, those who are pregnant, and those who have underlying medical disorders.

The new guidance is in opposition to proposals put out by the US Food and Drug Administration, which has recommended treating COVID-19 boosters like yearly flu vaccines for the foreseeable future.

Officials from the FDA have discussed the possibility of delivering revised formulations to everyone, even the young and healthy, every fall.

In an opinion piece that was published in JAMA in May, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, and the agency’s chief vaccine regulator, Peter Marks, stated that yearly COVID booster campaigns before the winter season’s waves of respiratory diseases like flu, COVID, and RSV, would prevent health care systems from becoming overburdened.

Additionally, they talked especially about the prospect of immunizing those who are at minimal risk.

FDA officials wrote that “The benefit of giving additional COVID booster vaccines to healthy individuals 18-50 years of age who’ve already received primary vaccinations and a first booster dose isn’t likely to have as marked an effect on hospitalizations or death as in the other populations at a higher risk. However, booster vaccinations may be associated with a reduction in health care utilization.”

In a news conference, WHO advisers described the advantage of boosting individuals at low or even medium risk as “actually quite marginal” and said that countries might even stop providing the initial COVID-19 vaccine series to healthy children and adolescents at low risk depending on local resources and other conditions.

According to Hanna Nohynek, chair of the WHO advisory groups known as SAGE for the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, these amended guidelines “reflect that much of the population is either vaccinated or previously infected with COVID-19, or both.”

The amended advice from the experts does not preclude nations from providing boosters to lower risk populations if they so choose generally or for particular purposes, such as foreign travel.

However, Nohynek went on to add that doing this offers few benefits and the overall guidance “reemphasizes the importance of vaccinating those still at risk of severe disease, mostly older adults and those with underlying conditions, including with additional boosters.”

High-risk populations were specifically taken into account by the WHO’s SAGE, including older persons, young adults with substantial co-morbidities like diabetes and heart disease, people 6 months of age and older with immunocompromising illnesses including HIV-positive individuals and transplant patients, pregnant women, and frontline healthcare professionals.

Given the present epidemiological circumstances, SAGE advised an extra booster for these high-risk individuals six to twelve months after their previous immunization.

The experts made note that the suggestion is “time-limited” for the present circumstance and not one that calls for continuing to administer yearly or biennial doses.

If new, more dangerous variations emerge or the COVID-19 distribution continues to diminish, for example, the scenario and general guidelines may need to be adjusted.

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