After COVID killed off a flu strain, annual flu shots are in for a redesign

Enlarge / The flu virus, showing the H and N proteins on its surface. (credit: CDC)

Vaccine advisors for the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously (12 to 0) Thursday to remove, “as soon as possible,” a component of annual flu shots that targets a strain of the virus that appears to have gone extinct amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vote follows a similar recommendation from the World Health Organization last week, which stated that “every effort should be made to exclude this component as soon as possible.”

Exactly how soon that removal could happen is unclear, though, and some advisors on the FDA’s panel expressed frustration that plans for the removal appear to have been slow-walked in the last couple of years, as it only became more apparent that the strain may be gone for good.