Could the Covid-19 vaccine become a yearly shot? Some experts think so

Public health experts aren’t quite clear on what the future holds for Covid-19 vaccines — but some say it’s looking more and more like these shots could be needed on a yearly basis, similar to how flu shots are recommended each fall.

“In order to keep it under control, we likely will need some form of periodic vaccination. Now, whether that’s annual or every two years or every five years, we don’t really know that yet. I think that that will emerge as we gather more data,” Dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University, said Monday.

“But I do anticipate that this will be required on a periodic basis to keep it under control,” said Chatterjee, who’s also a member of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. She added that her comments do not reflect the opinions of the committee or the FDA.

The FDA said Monday that representatives from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health also will participate in the meeting.

The meeting is intended to assist the FDA in developing a “general framework” that will inform when further Covid-19 vaccine booster doses might be needed and what might warrant updating the makeup of vaccines to target specific coronavirus variants.

No official vote is planned, and there will be no discussion of authorization or approval for any specific products.

“As we prepare for future needs to address COVID-19, prevention in the form of vaccines remains our best defense against the disease and any potentially severe consequences,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a news release Monday.

“Now is the time to discuss the need for future boosters as we aim to move forward safely, with COVID-19 becoming a virus like others such as influenza that we prepare for, protect against, and treat,” Marks said. “Bringing together our panel of expert scientific external advisors in an open, transparent discussion about booster vaccination is an important step to gain insight, input and expert advice as we begin to formulate the best regulatory strategy to address COVID-19 and virus variants going forward.”

‘It’s heading towards this vaccine becoming an annual vaccine’

The day before the FDA announced the meeting date, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said he also thinks Covid-19 vaccines may become an annual shot.

“I think it’s heading towards this vaccine becoming an annual vaccine, at least for the foreseeable future, until we really understand the epidemiology of this disease and understand whether this coronavirus starts to recede into the background like the four circulating strains of the coronavirus that we’ve become accustomed to have,” Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member, told Margaret Brennan on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Coronaviruses that are known to infect humans were first identified in the 1960s, and among them are four circulating strains that cause common colds. The other human coronaviruses are Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS; severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS; and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that…