When Americans line up for flu vaccines next fall, they will almost certainly be getting vaccines that no longer contain protection against a family of flu viruses that appears to be extinct.
Experts who advise the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine-related issues voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend that the FDA approve trivalent flu vaccines for the 2024-2025 season, instead of the quadrivalent, or four-in-one, shots that have been the industry standard for the past decade or so. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee — VRBPAC, as it’s known — has been pushing for the removal of one of the influenza B components in flu vaccines, the portion that targeted B/Yamagata viruses, for some time now. B/Yamagata viruses haven’t been detected anywhere in the world since late March 2020, when Covid pandemic lockdowns and social distancing appeared to have halted circulation of this family of lineage of flu B.