Booster doses of the covid-19 vaccine may begin to be given to some adults in the United States.

(CNN) – After days of long debate among vaccine experts, booster doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can now be officially administered to some adults in the United States.

Early Friday morning, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, departed from the agency’s independent vaccine advisers to recommend reinforcements for a group more. wide range of people: those aged 18 to 64 who are at increased risk for COVID-19 due to their workplaces or institutional settings, as well as older adults, residents of long-term care facilities, and some people with impaired heart disease. underlying health.

The CDC’s recommendation includes recommendations made by its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Thursday, when it voted to recommend boosters for people 65 and older and residents of long-term care facilities who received the Pfizer / BioNTech series of vaccines against covid-19 at least 6 months ago and people ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions.

The CDC also backed the vaccine advisers’ recommendation that people ages 18 to 49 with underlying medical conditions can be boosted based on their individual benefits and risks.

However, ACIP members voted 9-6 against recommending boosters for people ages 18 to 64 who were at higher risk due to their work or institutional environment, such as healthcare workers, caregivers of the frail or immunosuppressed, people in homeless shelters and people in correctional facilities.

Walensky’s recommendation aligned with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which on Wednesday granted emergency use authorization for a booster dose of Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine in people 65 and older, people at high risk of serious illness and people whose jobs put them at risk of infection.

“As the director of the CDC, it is my job to recognize where our actions can have the greatest impact. At CDC, we are tasked with analyzing complex, often imperfect data to make concrete recommendations that optimize health. In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good, “Walensky said in the statement.