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FDA Recommends Changes to Flu Vaccine
The US Food and Drug Administration recently issued recommendations to make modifications to the flu vaccine in time for next year’s flu season. Specifically, the FDA wants the vaccine to include a strain that has become widespread in recent weeks and was identified in California this past fall.
The FDA recommends the composition of the next season's flu vaccine early in the year because it takes several months for manufacturers to produce the vaccine on a large scale. In selecting the vaccine components, the agency considers the epidemiology of new flu virus strains, responses to current vaccines, and the availability of new candidate strains for manufacturing.
Each year, three strains make up the world's flu vaccine. The Shanghai strain and the New Caledonia strain will be carried over from this year's vaccine, and the California strain will replace the Wyoming strain in next year's vaccine. A panel of flu experts at the World Health Organization last week also recommended that next year's vaccine include the California strain, known as A/California/7/2004(H3N2). The FDA panel usually follows WHO's recommendation.
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