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The Food and Drug Administration is asking drugmakers to update their formulas for the COVID-19 booster shots. The recommendation comes one day after the agency's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met to discuss the status of the vaccines for the fall.
The committee members recommended updating the vaccines to cover the XBB.1.5 variant, which currently accounts for about 40% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States. While the current boosters do provide some protection against the new strain, they were designed to target the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, both of which are no longer spreading in the U.S.
"Based on the totality of the evidence, FDA has advised manufacturers who will be updating their COVID-19 vaccines that they should develop vaccines with a monovalent XBB.1.5 composition," the FDA said in a statement.
Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax have already begun updating their booster shots to target the strain. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that he hopes the updated booster shots to begin shipping in September to coincide with the release of the updated flu vaccine.
Currently, just 17% of eligible Americans have received the updated bivalent booster shot.