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 The vote occurred at an emergency meeting of the Advisory Committee
on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has been meeting for months
to study and recommend who in the United States should get the first
scarce doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
There are an estimated 21 million healthcare workers and an
additional 3 million nursing home residents in the United States.
Although panel members universally endorsed the recommendation to
include frontline healthcare workers in the initial allocation,
several members of the panel voiced concerns about the inclusion of
long-term care residents. They noted that neither of the two
vaccines currently being reviewed for emergency use - from Moderna
Inc and Pfizer Inc with German partner BioNTech SE were specifically
tested in that group.
Ultimately, most members endorsed the early use of the vaccines in
long-term care residents, who make up 6% of COVID-19 cases and
nearly 40% of related deaths, according to the CDC.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said most state and local
jurisdictions expect to be able to vaccinate their healthcare
workforce within three weeks of receiving the first shipments of a
COVID-19 vaccine.
Initially, doses of the vaccine will be extremely scarce. CDC
officials told the panel that the agency expects only 5 million to
10 million doses will be available per week once U.S. regulators
authorize vaccines, which could come later this month.
That may require state and local officials tasked with distributing
the vaccines to designate sub-groups within those endorsed
categories who are at highest risk of COVID-19 to receive the first
inoculations.
CDC officials suggested states and local jurisdictions consider
prioritizing healthcare workers with direct patient contact, those
who provide services to patients or family members, those who handle
infectious materials and workers at long-term care facilities and
residents of skilled nursing facilities.
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Ultimately, the CDC expects to have as many as 40 million doses of the two-dose
vaccines available by the end of the year, which would cover roughly 20 million
individuals.
People who get the vaccines will sign consent forms and be given a fact sheet
explaining possible side effects, such as fatigue, injection site pain and body
aches.
For long-term care residents, the consent forms will also explain that the
vaccines have not been tested in that population, and families may be included
in conversations about potential risks as needed.
Because the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer may cause temporary flu-like
symptoms, the ACIP panel also recommended that healthcare personnel in the same
unit be vaccinated at different times to avoid the entire unit feeling ill
simultaneously.
ACIP's recommendations will be used by state and local health officials to guide
their decision making about how to dole out the vaccines.
The group will meet again after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
authorization to review specific data from the vaccines to help determine which
works best in a specific population, such as the elderly.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru;
writing by Caroline Humer; Editing by Peter Henderson and Bill Berkrot)
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