CDC Recommends Additional COVID-19 Vaccine for Elderly Populations

March 01, 2024 - On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend that individuals ages 65 and older get an additional dose of the 2023–2024 formula COVID-19 vaccine. According to CNN, 11 individuals voted yes on this recommendation, one voted no, and another abstained.

According to an introduction to the meeting given by Matthew F. Daley, MD, working chair of the ACIP, the committee’s last meeting that discussed COVID-19 vaccines was held in September 2023. At the close of that meeting, the ACIP had recommended that all individuals six months and older should be vaccinated with one of the following two-dose series, barring any contraindications: the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 6 months and older, the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 6 months and older, or the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 12 years and older.

Individuals 5 and older were also advised to get an additional dose of the updated vaccine. At the same time, children between 6 months and 4 years were not considered up to date on their vaccinations unless they had one dose of the updated vaccine. Finally, immunocompromised individuals were also advised to get an additional dose of the updated vaccine.

This recent committee meeting added to those recommendations by advising individuals 65 and older to get an additional dose of the 2023–2024 formula COVID-19 vaccine.

If followed by the target population, this recommendation will offer these individuals additional protection against the infection by compensating for the waning immunity from earlier or initial vaccine doses.

“What the vaccines are doing now is providing an incremental benefit or an extra benefit beyond whatever benefit someone has remaining from their past infection or past vaccination, and we know that protection from past vaccination and past infection wanes,” said Ruth Link–Gelles, PhD, MPH, at the committee meeting. “That’s important for all people in the United States but especially important for those that are the highest risk.”

Earlier this month, the CDC published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) suggesting that the most updated COVID-19 vaccines offered adequate protection against JN.1 viral variants. Before that, the public health organization issued a respiratory illness update that identified JN.1 as the most dominant viral variant, accounting for almost 90% of all circulating variants.

The data gathered and presented by the CDC and other research studies supports recommendations for additional vaccinations among this patient population.