(CNN) -- The Food and Drug Administration authorized shortening the waiting period Friday for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine booster shot to five months.
Previously, fully vaccinated adults had to wait six months before receiving a booster.
Recently, the FDA made similar changes to the Pfizer-BioNTech booster after early data showed the omicron variant was able to, at least partially, evade the protection offered by two doses.
“The country is in the middle of a wave of the highly contagious omicron variant, which spreads more rapidly than the original virus and other variants that have emerged,� Dr Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.
The statement continued, “Vaccination is our best defense against COVID-19, including the circulating variants, and shortening the length of time between completion of a primary series and a booster dose may help reduce waning immunity."
