What Does the Addition of a Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Mean?
With the company reporting its data today and it applying for authorization with regulatory bodies internationally, and later this year with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), what does the prospect of this new vaccine mean to people in the US and internationally?
Earlier today, Novavax announced data from its phase 3 PREVENT-19 trial for its NVX-CoV2373 COVID-19 vaccine. The results showed it was 90.4% overall for prevention of symptomatic disease.
While these results demonstrate a highly effective vaccine, what does the potential addition of this vaccine to the fold mean both here in the US and internationally?
From a big picture standpoint, the US has had enough COVID-19 vaccine supplies for some time, but one of the international concerns has been that many countries are desperately in need of vaccines. And the situation is becoming more direr as the emergence of the Delta variant has become a serious threat. Starting in India and making its way westward to the UK and now in the states, there is concern the Delta variant might become the dominant strain in this country. There have also been discussions by the medical community that a booster vaccination might be needed to address new variants or waning immunity.
With these troublesome trends, the authorization of another vaccine could help ease these burdens.
Contagion spoke with Jonathan Baktari, MD, CEO of e7health.com about the importance of having another COVID-19 vaccine, some of the advantages of the Novavax vaccine, and the possibility of having an mRNA vaccine the first go around and then moving towards another vaccine platform.
