U.S. chief medical adviser Dr. Antony Fauci has said that the United States will be looking at Israeli data on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to clarify the level of risk involved in administering them to citizens under the age of 65.
“The real question that we have not yet answered is the safety data of an mRNA vaccine in young people vis-a-vis myocarditis,” said Fauci in a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles, is found in a small number of those who were vaccinated.
“The Israelis will relatively soon have that data, because they’re vaccinating everybody in the country … from 12 years old up,” he added.
The data collected by the Israel Defense Forces on military recruits, specifically, is expected to shed light on the safety of the vaccines in the younger cohort with regard to Myocarditis, said Fauci.
While the FDA in August approved two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine for people 16 and older, it has approved a third shot only in emergency cases. It has also granted emergency-use authorization to the Moderna mRNA vaccine and a single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot—and said that it will review the two companies’ applications for booster shots during advisory meetings on Oct. 14 and 15.