WHO: SAGE Recommends An Additional Booster After Last Dose

The World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) changed its recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday, recommending that high-risk populations receive an additional dose 12 months after their last booster.

High-risk populations were defined by the health agency as older adults as well as younger people with other significant risk factors. Based on factors such as age and immunocompromising conditions, the agency recommends an additional dose of the vaccine 6 or 12 months after the most recent dose for this group.

The WHO categorized healthy children and adolescents as “low priority” and urged countries to consider factors such as disease burden before recommending vaccination for this group.

The recommendations come as different countries approach their populations in different ways. Some high-income countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, are already offering COVID-19 boosters to high-risk people this spring, six months after their last dose.

The WHO stated that this was an option for a subset of people who were particularly vulnerable, but its recommendations were intended as a global best practice guide.

The agency also stated that additional COVID booster vaccines beyond the initial series – two shots and a booster – were no longer routinely recommended for “medium risk” people.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE previously announced that the US 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 vaccine.

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