The Ministry of Health (MoH) has indicated Pfizer has made an application to MedSafe for provisional approval of the BA.4/5 bivalent COVID-19 vaccine.
MoH said while MedSafe is evaluating Pfizer's application, clinical data to support its application for provisional approval is not expected to be available until "later this year at the earliest".
It comes as just one region in Aotearoa reported a decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases week on week, while one area saw a massive increase over the same period.
The MoH announced earlier on Monday there were 14,311 new COVID-19 cases from Monday, October 10 to Sunday, October 16.
There was a slight jump in the total number of new COVID-19 cases from the week before, which covered the period from Monday, October 3 to Sunday, October 9. For this week, there were 11,205 new community cases announced.
