The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is discussing a move to administer half-dose Moderna coronavirus vaccines to spread the jab more widely across the population, according to a Top Operation Warp Speed (OWS) official.
The comments of dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief operating officer of OWS, said on Sunday when he told Margaret Brennan, CBS, that the increase in the dose of vaccines given to people between the ages of 18 and 55 was an “identical immune response”, 100 micrograms dose.
Dr Moncef Slaoui, Chief Adviser of Operation Warp Speed, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday, November 13, 2020 in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
This plan would vaccinate twice the number of people, Slaoui said, calling it a “more responsible approach based on facts and data.”
“We are in talks with Moderna and with the FDA. Of course, it will ultimately be a decision of the FDA to inject half the volume,” he continued.
Slaoui’s remarks surfaced after he was pressured to describe how the federal government is acting to help states administer doses into Americans’ arms.
A former FDA chief later agreed that dosing adjustments would speed up vaccination efforts.
“They can go there,” said former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, said told CNBC presents co-host on Monday and talks about halving the doses of Moderna. “It will definitely increase supply.”
By Monday morning, the federal government had distributed at least 13 million doses, and more than 4.2 million vaccines had gone into Americans’ arms, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said there was likely to be a backlog in reporting.
While British officials are making a decision to eliminate the vaccination between the first and second doses by twelve weeks, Slaoui and dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, rejects this approach.
GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I think it is not reasonable if vaccines were developed with two doses given 21 days apart or 28 days apart, and where we have the information on their safety and efficacy,” Slaoui said. “We have no information about one dose if our people cause a month, two months, three months with perhaps incomplete immunity, declining immunity, maybe even the wrong kind of immune response, which is then corrected with a second dose.”
While Americans seem to be gaining confidence in the vaccine, the process of undoing the new confidence may be tampered with.