No, COVID-19 booster and flu shot will not be combined this fall | VERIFY

1 year ago 6

While drugmakers are working on combined vaccines, you will still get two separate jabs if you want protection this season against COVID-19 and influenza.

WASHINGTON D.C., DC — As COVID-19 spreads faster, we are getting more questions from viewers about what the virus is doing and how to stay healthy. But we are also getting closer to flu season.

That is why a viewer named Cynthia emailed us. She wanted to know how many pokes she would have to endure if she gets a booster shot against COVID-19 as well as a flu shot.

QUESTION

Will the upcoming, reformulated COVID-19 vaccine be combined with the flu vaccine?

SOURCES

ANSWER

The COVID-19 and flu vaccines will not be combined this season, though they may be combined as soon as next year.

WHAT WE FOUND

In June 2023, responding to the continued mutations of the Sars-COV-2 virus, the FDA approved recommendations from an advisory panel to ask manufacturers to make updated vaccines against COVID-19. The FDA recommended a monovalent vaccine targeting the XBB subvariants.

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have each submitted applications for regulation of their updated vaccines. Neither mention having additional protection against influenza.

Also in June, the CDC announced the formula for this season’s flu shot, which advisors recommended. It approved a quadrivalent formula, meaning vaccines must promote immune response to the four strains of flu virus that researchers believe are most likely to spread this season.

The CDC’s website says you can get a flu shot and a COVID-19 shot at the same time--in the same arm or one in each arm--if that is convenient and you are due for vaccination, but they do not have to be administered at the same time.

Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Novavax, the three companies whose COVID-19 vaccines are available in the United States, are all testing vaccines that could protect against both. Moderna's CEO told Bloomberg that it could have a combined vaccine available as early as 2024. Pfizer-BioNTech expects to have a combined vaccine ready as soon as 2025.

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