The US Food and Drug Administration today said a new flu vaccine is effective against the new coronavirus in healthy adults ages 18 to 65. The new drug, Fluoroquinolone, is taken as a booster for those currently vaccinated, or those who want to be immunized for the first time.
Though the vaccine is effective against a new virus, it has not been proven to prevent severe disease from the virus in children ages 5 to 17. A new dose of vaccine is still needed to protect against severe disease, the FDA said.
Experts will continue to study the effectiveness of the vaccine in children, particularly in younger children, to understand whether there’s a chance for the new flu vaccine to be helpful in preventing illness in those young children.
There have been three cases of human coronavirus infections in the United States so far: Two in Maryland and one in New Jersey. No one has died.
The Coronavirus Research Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and its Monash Global Health Institute are conducting trials of the new drug in Maryland, with the Federal Vaccine Vaccines Division and the Food and Drug Administration.
Researchers in Australia have been conducting a trial using a higher dosage of the drug, which is what will be used in the upcoming outbreak.