Immunologists say the newly approved vaccine from U.S. manufacturer Novavax in the EU is also suitable for booster vaccinations. “Everything known so far indicates that Novavax is probably a very good vaccine,” Carsten Watzl, secretary general of the German Society for Immunology, told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.
“In booster vaccines, Novavax is not quite as effective as mRNA vaccines, according to a British study, but it is significantly better than vector vaccines,” the Dortmund immunology professor said. He said this distinguishes Novavax’s vaccine from the inactivated vaccine approval candidate Valneva. “In booster vaccinations, it was seen that mRNA vaccines improved antibody protection twenty- to thirtyfold, but Valneva improved it only twofold,” Watzl said.
Novavax’s preparation must now also be adapted to the Omicron variant and its altered spike protein, Watzl said. “Developing a new cell line will be a little more costly for the manufacturer than it will be for the producers of the mRNA vaccines to change their starting product.” In general, he said, the Novavax vaccine has almost similar potential to vaccines produced by Biontech and Pfizer or Moderna.
The Novavax vaccine is the first protein-based corona vaccine now available in the EU – a method that has been known and used for a long time.
- source: derstandard.at/picture: pixabay.com
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