As Novavax XBB.1.5 COVID-19 vaccines became available on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said 3,752 people received the updated vaccine on the first day, and people aged 12 or older are eligible.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Dec. 13 last year granted special approval for importing the Novavax XBB.1.5 vaccine, citing that it is manufactured with the same technology as the brand’s previous vaccine, and animal tests showed neutralizing antibody responses to XBB and other subvariants.
The FDA said that the most common adverse reactions from the Novavax XBB.1.5 vaccine include pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, muscle pain and malaise, with mild to moderate local or systemic adverse reactions.
Photo: CNA
The CDC on Dec. 30 last year said that the first batch of Novavax XBB.1.5 vaccine, containing 462,800 doses, had arrived in Taiwan.
After passing the FDA’s batch release testing, the Novavax XBB.1.5 vaccine became available on Tuesday for people aged 12 or older.
The CDC recommends unvaccinated people to get two doses, with four weeks between them, and people who have received older COVID-19 vaccines to get one dose with at least three months gap from the previous one.
In addition to 3,752 people who got the new vaccine, 14,065 people received Moderna’s Spikevax XBB.1.5 vaccine on the same day, totaling to 17,817 people receiving an XBB vaccine shot on Tuesday.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said Tuesday marked the second-highest daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered this year, after 22,484 doses administered on Friday last week.
Since Moderna’s XBB-adapted vaccine first became available on Sept. 26 last year, 970,153 doses have been administered, the CDC said.
As respiratory infections and COVID-19 cases continue to increase globally and locally, four US states and parts of Spain have reintroduced mask mandates at healthcare facilities, Lo said, adding that there will not be any changes to mask rules in Taiwan in the near future.
The CDC encourages people to wear a mask when they have respiratory symptoms, when they visit crowded sites with poor air ventilation and lack of safe distance from others, and when having close contact with elderly people or immunocompromised people, especially if they are not up to date on vaccines, Lo said.
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