The CDC advised older adults to receive a newly approved respiratory syncytial virus vaccine June 29 after a panel voted on a watered-down recommendation.
Advisory panels for the agency usually vote on whether a population group should receive a pharmaceutical product, but on June 21, the advisers agreed that people 60 and older "may" get a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine.
Before May, there were no approved shots for RSV. GSK secured the first approval May 3, and Pfizer's vaccine was approved a few weeks later. Both are indicated for adults 60 and older. Every year, the infection hospitalizes between 60,000 and 160,000 and kills 6,000 to 10,000 older adults, according to the CDC.
The vaccines are expected to be available in the fall.
The other age groups vulnerable to severe infection from the virus are infants and young children. Among 100 children born, one to two will be hospitalized with RSV before they turn 6 months old, according to the CDC. There are no approved RSV shots for this population.