The European Medicines Agency (EMA) this Wednesday recommended the approval of a vaccine adapted to the XBB.1.5 subvariant of the Omicron virus of covid-19.
The vaccine – known as Comirnaty Omicron XBB.1.5 – is intended to prevent Covid-19 in adults and children from six months of age.
In line with previous recommendations from EMA and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), adults and children from 5 years of age who require vaccination should receive a single dose, regardless of their vaccination history against covid-19.
Children between six months and four years old can receive one or three doses of the vaccine.
The recommendation was forwarded to the European Commission for decision.
On August 17, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) classified recombinant strains of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus as variants of interest, warning of the increase in the spread and transmission of covid-19 in Europe. .
“ECDC has classified all XBB.1.5-like strains with the additional amino acid change F456L as variants of interest. This is due to a rapid increase in the proportion of these variants currently circulating that may have immune evasive properties compared to the variants that were previously in circulation,” the community service states in a press release released at the time.
Covid-19 is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a type of virus discovered in China in late 2019 that has spread rapidly around the world, taking on several variants and subvariants, one of which is more contagious than the other.
The disease was classified as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and in May 2023 it was no longer an international public health emergency.
Source: DN
