COVID-19 boosters for high-risk adults 6-12 months after last dose: WHO

The health agency defined high-risk populations as older adults, as well as younger people with other significant risk factors. For this group, the agency recommends an additional shot of the vaccine either 6 or 12 months after the latest dose, based on factors such as age and immunocompromising conditions. 

Also Read:COVID vaccine: NTAGI holds meeting on Covovax inclusion as heterologous booster for adults on CoWin portal

The WHO defined the group including healthy children and adolescents as "low priority" and urged countries to consider factors like disease burden before recommending the vaccination of this group.

The recommendations come as countries take differing approaches for their populations. Some high-income countries like the United Kingdom and Canada are already offering high-risk people COVID-19 boosters this spring, six months after their last dose.

The WHO said this was an option for a subset of people who were at particular risk, but its recommendations were intended as a best practice global guide.

The agency said its committee of experts had also said that additional booster vaccines for COVID beyond the initial series - two shots and a booster - were no longer routinely recommended for "medium risk" people.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE have announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to provide a single booster dose of the companies’ Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine in children 6 months through 4 years of age (also referred to as under 5 years of age) at least 2 months after completion of primary vaccination with three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Original Vaccine.

Also Read:Life-threatening bacteria found in Hyderabad company's cancer drug: WHO