It’s official — the Food and Drug Administration has given its full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, a major move in the coronavirus pandemic.
- And, it looks like the Pfizer vaccine has a new name.
What’s the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine's new name?
According to the FDA, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be marketed as Comirnaty — pronounced “koe-mir’-na-tee.”
- The vaccine will be marketed as a vaccine to protect against COVID-19 disease for those 16 years old and up.
- Anyone from 12 to 15 years old can get the vaccine under emergency use approval, but it has not been fully approved for those age groups.
What to know about Comirnaty
Per the FDA, Comirnaty contains mRNA genetic material, which “is used by the body to make a mimic of one of the proteins in the virus that causes COVID-19.”
- “The result of a person receiving this vaccine is that their immune system will ultimately react defensively to the virus that causes COVID-19,” according to the FDA.
- And the mRNA from Comirnaty “is only present in the body for a short time and is not incorporated into — nor does it alter — an individual’s genetic material,” per the FDA.
- Overall, Comirnaty has the same makeup as the vaccine approved for emergency authorization, and it is given out in two doses, per the FDA.
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The Comirnaty vaccine has often been called the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It’s unclear how health departments will refer to the vaccine moving forward, but expect the possibility of Comirnaty being a more common name.