The American Medicines Agency (Food and Drug Administration, FDA) authorized, on Wednesday July 13, the vaccine against Covid-19 from Novavax for adults 18 years of age and older. Produced by this American company, it is already distributed in dozens of other countries.
In the United States, on the other hand, only three anti-Covid-19 vaccines were currently authorized: those with messenger RNA from Pfizer and Moderna, and that from Johnson & Johnson. But access to the latter has been limited due to an increased risk of serious thrombosis.
The emergency authorization of the Novavax vaccine will “offering American adults who have not yet received a Covid-19 vaccine another option”welcomed, in a press release, Robert Califf, the boss of the FDA.
90% efficiency to put into perspective
Given in two doses three weeks apart, it uses a more traditional technique than messenger RNA, which has been the target of many conspiracy theories, although it has been shown to be very safe. The Novavax vaccine contains a component of the virus that triggers an immune response, similar to the pertussis, meningococcal meningitis and hepatitis B vaccines.
In clinical trials, conducted on several thousand people in the United States and Mexico, it was found to be 90% effective against symptomatic cases of Covid-19. A figure which must however be put into perspective, these tests having been conducted before the Delta and Omicron variants.
“Americans can be confident that this vaccine, like all other vaccines used in the United States, has undergone rigorous and comprehensive scientific review by the FDA”underlined Peter Marks, responsible within the agency.
The vaccination rate of the adult population is stagnating around 77% in the United States. The US government announced this week that it had purchased 3.2 million doses of the vaccine from Novavax, anticipating the FDA’s decision.
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