The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized another Covid vaccine booster for people 50 years of age and older. Pfizer or Moderna vaccines will be used for people who have received the previous booster for at least four months. Until now, the FDA had authorized the fourth dose only for people 12 and older with a fragile immune picture. The agency added that this particular group may receive a fifth dose in the future.
The news immediately drew attention to the Italian situation: “Nobody talks about a fourth dose for everyone”, the comment of the Minister of Health Speranza, “the priority is the frail and the elderly”. “I think the time has come to discuss together, at a European level, on how to face the next few weeks and, in particular, to work to have a univocal position on times and generational groups to administer the fourth dose of the Covid vaccine” . “I formally ask that there be a unified position, of the European countries, of our agencies, of the Commission on the fourth dose. Non-homogeneous choices in the various European countries only end up confusing and do not help vaccination campaigns. I ask the Commission to be given a mandate, in agreement with the current presidency, to make a proposal in this sense based exclusively on scientific evidence, ”added the minister. In a press point with journalists, at the end of the Council, Speranza explained that the Commission and the presidency have undertaken the commitment to present a joint proposal within a week.