Health Canada has approved a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot that specifically targets strains of the Omicron variant.
On Friday, Health Canada said all Canadians aged 12 and over can get the new vaccine that battles the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron strains.
It’s the second bivalent vaccine approved by Health Canada’s vaccine review team, and the first that targets the virus strains that are now most common in Canada.
Health Canada said 88 per cent of the COVID cases identified in Canada in mid-September were BA.5 and nine per cent were BA.4.
The Moderna bivalent vaccine, approved by Health Canada five weeks ago, targets the original COVID virus and the first Omicron variant.
“We’re in an interesting kind of place in the pandemic where we haven’t been before,” Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, told reporters.
“There’s a bit of a variant soup out there. There’s lots of different ones. It’s still a little bit uncertain which one might emerge. I think the vaccines that we have now protect us very well against the circulating variants that we currently have.”
The new Pfizer vaccine can be administered three to six months after a second dose of the primary vaccine series, or the most recent booster shot.
— With files from The Canadian Press