#Moderna hopes to offer combined flu, COVID-19 booster by 2023
One pharmaceutical company is hoping to simplify the vaccination process, with Moderna announcing its hopes to launch a single booster shot that can protect against both COVID-19 and the flu.
Speaking during the first day of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda 2022, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, said his company hopes to offer a single annual booster shot that provides protection against both the flu and COVID-19.
Bancel said that would help with compliance issues for people who don’t want to return to their pharmacy or health care provider multiple times for different vaccinations, adding it would, “make sure people get their vaccines.”
On the timing of Moderna’s single booster shot, Bancel said, “the best-case scenario would be the fall of 2023.”
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Bancel also provided an update on an omicron-specific vaccine that Moderna has been developing since November of last year.
“We’re hoping in the March timeframe we should be able to have data to share with regulators to figure out the next step forward,” Bancel said.
Earlier this month, Bancel said during a health care conference he believed the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines will decrease over time and eventually people will need a fourth shot to boost their protection against the virus.
The news comes as the U.S. surgeon general warned Americans that the current wave of omicron COVID-19 cases has yet to peak, as different regions of the country are experiencing varied degrees of infection or decline.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is the strongest tool against the omicron variant and can lower a person’s risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 and can prevent serious illness and death.
The latest CDC data show about 75 percent of eligible Americans have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, nearly 63 percent have received two doses and 38 percent have gotten their booster shot.
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