The new Novavax vaccine will be available to a limited group of Dutch people. These are people who do want a shot, but not with an mRNA vaccine, such as Pfizer’s. This was decided by outgoing minister De Jonge after a advice of the Health Council.
According to the council, the rest of the Dutch should preferably receive vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna. The reason for this is that more is known about the side effects and the effectiveness against new virus variants. De Jonge writes that he continues to advise unvaccinated people to “choose an mRNA vaccine as soon as possible for a primary vaccination series”.
Nuvaxovid, as the Novavax vaccine is called, is a subunit protein vaccine. It contains counterfeit particles of the spike protein, which the coronavirus partly consists of. People develop antibodies after injection.
Delivery is expected in late February or early March. In total, the government has purchased 840,000 doses. Two doses of the vaccine are needed to provide good protection. There must be at least three weeks between the first and second injection.
Protection between 60 and 90 percent
At the beginning of this week, Novavax approved by the European Commission, after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave a positive advice. This makes it the fifth vaccine that can be used in the European Union.
The vaccine protects between 60 and 90 percent against infection, according to the Health Council. Any side effects are mild, research shows. It should be noted that the research was conducted when the alpha and beta variants of the virus were dominant, the Council writes. How the Novavax vaccine protects against these new corona variants is still being investigated by the manufacturer.
‘In high demand, more vaccines of this type’
A special behavioral unit will look for De Jonge to see how many people want the vaccine. This also applies to vaccines containing inactivated virus particles.
“Should it turn out that a larger group of Dutch people than expected only wants to use a protein or inactivated virus vaccine, I will see how the Netherlands can acquire more vaccines of these types,” the minister wrote last week.
An inactivated virus vaccine consists of a complete but inactivated virus. The European Union has taken an option on another such vaccine, from pharmaceutical company Valneva, but it is not yet on the market.
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