EU health official says bivalent COVID boosters needed for protection against Omicron
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As Omicron subvariants continue to dominate cases of COVID-19 in Europe, a top European Union health official said that bivalent shots that protect against both the original strain and Omicron provide better protection.
Pierre Delsaux, director of EU's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, told a European Parliament hearing that no matter what bivalent vaccine is eventually chosen, it will provide better protection against BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants than currently available shots, Reuters reported.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), like the U.S. FDA, has yet to decide what the makeup of future COVID vaccines should be in advance of a fall vaccination campaign. The current thinking is it will likely be a bivalent vaccine that will contain protection against the original strain as well as against BA.1 (original Omicron variant) or BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
The EMA projects the new vaccine will be authorized by September.
However, testing of a vaccine targeted against BA.4 and BA.5 may not be completed by then, so the agency may start a fall campaign using bivalent vaccine against BA.1, according to Reuters.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), and Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) are all working on booster vaccines to be administered in the fall that fight Omicron. And following advice from the FDA, they are also working on ones specifically against BA.4 and BA.5.