The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the nation’s first mRNA-based flu vaccine for use in people 50 and older. The vaccine, developed by Moderna, uses the same mRNA technology as many Covid-19 vaccines.

How the mRNA Flu Vaccine Works

Traditional flu shots use inactivated or weakened forms of the virus to train the immune system to recognize the live virus if it enters the body. In contrast, mRNA vaccines use a piece of mRNA that encodes for a viral protein. When you receive an mRNA vaccine, your body gets the instructions to make a copy of that viral protein, which then generates the immune response that prepares you to fight off future infections.

The new vaccine, called mFlusiva, has been shown to be about 27% more effective than standard flu shots in people 50 and older. However, it also had higher rates of adverse reactions, such as injection site pain, muscle and joint pain, nausea, and vomiting. Most of these reactions were mild to moderate and went away within days.

Who Can Get the Vaccine

The vaccine will be available for people 50 and older, but it received two different types of approval. For adults 50 to 64 years old, it received standard approval, while for adults 65 and older, it received accelerated approval.

Experts say that the new vaccine is a major step forward, but more research is needed to determine its effectiveness in older adults. The FDA has required Moderna to conduct a post-marketing study this coming flu season to compare the vaccine’s effectiveness to an enhanced flu vaccine already recommended for older people.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.