(Reuters) -The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has accepted recommendations made by an advisory panel in April on the use of respiratory syncytial virus vaccines in adults aged between 50 and 59 years who are at an increased risk of severe illness from the virus.
The panel of vaccine experts was fired in June by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
The recommendations were also accepted by Kennedy, in the absence of the director of the agency, the CDC’s website showed on Wednesday.
The CDC director typically signs off on the panel’s recommendations before they are implemented, but the agency does not currently have one. President Donald Trump’s nomination for the post, Susan Monarez, is yet to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved three vaccines for RSV — GSK’s Arexvy, Moderna’s mRESVIA and Pfizer’s Abrysvo.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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