Omicron Boosters, what they mean for Turks and Caicos Islands inventory of Vaccines

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, September 18, 2022 – The Turks and Caicos Islands may be forced to dump boosters whether people want to take them or not if the UK follows the FDA’s lead on ‘updated boosters’.

During August the US Food and Drug Administration approved the emergency use of bivalent vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer as updated booster shots.  The shots have two components one that protects against the original covid19 strain and one that protects against Omicron BA.4 and BA.5.

But what the agency also did was rescind its emergency use approval for the original monovalent boosters. Those boosters were the same formula as the original vaccines which means they were made to fight the initial strain of Covid and had limited efficacy against omicron and its variants.

The Turks and Caicos received thousands of those doses from the UK over the past nine months.

Now that there are several bivalent vaccines including ones that protect against Omicron and the BA.5/4 variants specifically the FDA has determined that there is no need for the original boosters. Those boosters, depending on who made them, are eligible to be used as primary doses for people who have never had a shot to prevent waste but the majority of the TCI population have already had their primary doses.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic the UK has been one of the front runners in approving and using cutting edge treatments to protect people from the disease. They have already approved the bivalent that fights the original strain of omicron

If the UK gives Moderna and Pfizer the nod and puts a ban on the old boosters the doses may have to be dumped.

Based on the extremely low booster uptake, that would mean thousands of doses down the drain.