More answers needed on U.S. FDA's proposal for annual COVID shot: Bogoch
There are still many unanswered questions involving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) recent proposal for an annual COVID-19 shot, infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch says.
"It's clear that it's unclear," Bogoch said during an appearance on CTV's Your Morning on Tuesday.
On Monday, the FDA proposed an annual COVID-19 shot as a more simplified approach to future vaccinations, meaning people would not have to track how many shots they've received or the amount of time that has passed since their booster.
The FDA says a combination of vaccinations, infections and those who have had both should be enough to move to an annual booster to fight the latest strains of COVID-19.
Bogoch said he believes the FDA is trying to balance a "pragmatic, simple approach with emerging and existing science."
"I think they feel that, you know, currently we have several different vaccines, we have several different schedules, we have several different recommendations," he said.
"And by perhaps updating the vaccine to circulating variants in the summertime, and then having a one-time mass rollout campaign in the fall, they can get better uptake, better protection, help protect individuals and help protect communities in a much safer and better manner with this approach."
The agency plans to ask a panel of outside vaccine experts for advice in deciding future requirements for vaccine makers.
But there are still a lot of unanswered questions, Bogoch added.
"Who would best benefit from a booster vaccine? ... What is the best frequency of vaccination? And then on top of that, what would be the best composition of the vaccine? Like these are three significant questions that need to be addressed and it's not entirely clear that we have the data to properly address each of those three questions," he said.
"That's why they're going to put a panel together and discuss this in an open and transparent manner about what we know, what we don't know and what a smart path forward should be."
Recent federal data show that as of Jan. 1, more than 83 per cent of Canadians have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
A little more than 22 per cent of the population has received a booster dose since Aug. 1, 2022.
The federal government in September approved the country's first bivalent booster shot, designed to target the original strain of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant.
With files from CTVNews.ca Online Politics Producer Rachel Aiello and The Associated Press
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