CNN
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The US Food and Drug Administration was issued on Thursday Recommendations There is no input from an independent vaccine advisor regarding the composition of influenza shots for the upcoming respiratory virus season.
The FDA’s vaccine-related Bioproduct Advisory Committee was scheduled to meet on Thursday to consider the composition of the flu shot, but that session was cancelled in late February without explanation.
Instead, experts within the FDA, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Defense met Thursday to look at US and global surveillance data on the currently circulating influenza virus.
The FDA recommends that the 2025-26 flu vaccine is trivalent and protect it from two strains: influenza A and influenza B.
“The FDA expects to have an appropriate and diverse supply of approved trivalent influenza vaccines for the upcoming virus season,” the statement said in the statement.
There are several ways to make an influenza vaccine, Most common Cultivating selected candidate viruses in chicken eggs. This is a painstaking surgery that takes several months to complete.
Therefore, the choice of strains contained in the flu vaccine has been carefully adjusted so that manufacturers can deliver shots to doctors’ offices and pharmacies in time.
To sell the flu vaccine in the US, it must contain strains officially selected by the FDA.
That decision usually comes after the World Health Organization’s global flu monitoring and response systems meeting. Network of Seven cooperation centres and four important regulatory labs based in the US, UK, Japan, China, Russia and Australia. Both the CDC and the FDA are members.
These experts meet twice a year in autumn and spring to select strains of countries in the Southern and Northern Hemisphere. Who is himself Vaccine recommendations In the case of 2025-26, it is generally parallel to that of the FDA.
Typically, 17 FDA Vaccine Committees will meet next, publicly discussing recommendations and making their own approval, and then the agency will make a final decision.
The cancellation of the committee meeting prompted concerns about the timing and access of flu shots this fall. Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital’s Independent Advisory Committee and director of the Center for Vaccine Education, said Thursday.
The 2024-25 flu season – the worst in the US in over 10 years – is believed to have peaked in early February. CDC Estimated In early March, there were at least 40 million illnesses, 520,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths from the flu this season.
CNN’s Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.
