Moderna vaccine
Moderna vaccineReuters

Moderna said on Wednesday it had applied with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for authorization of its COVID-19 booster vaccine for all adults aged 18 and older, Reuters reports.

The FDA last month cleared booster shots of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for people who are immunocompromised, those aged 65 and older and for individuals at high risk of severe disease or who are regularly exposed to the virus.

Moderna is seeking authorization for a 50-microgram booster dose, half the strength of its original vaccine given in two shots about four weeks apart.

The filing comes a week after Pfizer applied for a similar clearance for the booster doses of the vaccine it has developed with German partner BioNTech.

A decision from the FDA on Pfizer is expected this week ahead of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel meeting on Friday to discuss expanding the eligibility for booster doses of the vaccine.

On Tuesday, officials told The New York Times that the FDA is aiming to authorize booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for all adults as early as Thursday.

If this indeed happens, any adult who received a second dose of the vaccine at least six months earlier would be officially eligible to get a booster as soon as this weekend.