CDC committee unanimously recommends Moderna, J&J boosters
A CDC advisory committee on Thursday unanimously recommended booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, aligning with an FDA authorization issued this week.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 15-0 to recommend that people in the risk groups covered by the FDA authorization receive a single booster shot at least 6 months after completing the primary two-dose series of a COVID-19 messenger RNA vaccine. (The vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are both mRNA vaccines. The Pfizer-BioNTech booster was authorized by the FDA and recommended by the ACIP last month.)
The ACIP also voted 15-0 to recommend a single booster dose for anyone aged 18 years or older — not just at-risk groups — who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, to be given 2 months after the first shot, also aligning with the FDA authorization.
The ACIP did not explicitly vote on recommending that people should be able to choose a booster shot that is different than their original vaccine — the so-called “mix and match” strategy now authorized by the FDA — but it said that if the same vaccine “is not available or another is preferred, heterologous boosting with a single dose of any of the authorized COVID-19 vaccine boosters is acceptable.”
The FDA authorization allows Moderna boosters for people aged 65 years or older, people aged 18 to 64 years who live in a long-term health care setting, or people aged 18 to 64 years who have an underlying medical condition or who face an increased risk for infection because of an occupational or institutional setting, same as the Pfizer vaccine. Modera boosters will be given in 50-µg doses — half the original shots.
The votes on booster doses concluded a 2-day meeting during which the ACIP also voted to update recommendations for pneumococcal and zoster vaccines.
During Thursday’s meeting, Moderna senior vice president Jacqueline Miller, MD, FAAP, said booster doses of the company’s vaccine provided a 23- to 44-fold increase in protection from COVID-19.
A Johnson & Johnson booster shot at 2 months increased protection from 70% to 94% in a phase 3 trial, Penny M. Heaton, MD, global therapeutic area head of vaccines at the company, said during the meeting.
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CDC. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html. Accessed Oct. 21, 2021.
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