Is Novavax really a dead vaccine? Questions and answers about the new vaccine

The European Medicines Agency EMA is advising on Monday after an accelerated test procedure on the approval of the corona vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company Novavax. Approval of the preparation Nuvaxovid (NVX-CoV2373) would expand the range of corona vaccines available in the EU.

Many skeptics of the previous vaccines are presumably waiting for the drug. Health Minister Lauterbach, however, already warned Bild TV against the assumption that the new vaccine would “become a game changer”. According to studies, the vaccines from Moderna and Biontech, which have already been administered millions of times, are “a whole lot safer”.

Questions and answers about the new product:

What technology is the Novavax vaccine based on?

The agent is a protein-based vaccine with virus antigen. Specifically, Novavax uses the so-called spike protein of the Covid-19 pathogen Sars-CoV-2 for its vaccine and reproduces it en masse in insect cells. After vaccination, the human immune system uses it to generate antibodies against the protein and can thus fight off Covid 19 disease. In addition, the Novavax vaccine contains saponin as a so-called adjuvant, which is supposed to increase the effectiveness of the vaccination.

Immunization with the Novavax vaccine is carried out with two doses three weeks apart. Like the corona vaccines already approved in the EU, the agent is injected into the muscle tissue of the upper arm.

What are the advantages of using the Novavax vaccine?

So far, the mRNA vaccines from Biontech / Pfizer and Moderna as well as the vector vaccines from Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson have been approved in the EU to protect against the coronavirus. With the Novavax vaccine, people in the EU would get a different type of corona vaccine to choose from. This could be of interest to people who have reservations about the vaccines that have been approved to date or who have medical reasons against their use.

Novavax announced in June that its corona vaccine was around 90 percent effective. It also protects against virus variants and 100 percent against “moderate and severe” disease courses. How well exactly the agent protects against the coronavirus variant Omikron, which was only discovered at the end of November, is unclear, however.

Unlike the corona vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer vaccine, for example, the Novavax vaccine can be stored at refrigerator temperature. This makes logistics easier and makes the product interesting for poorer countries as well.

Is the Novavax vaccine a dead vaccine?

That depends on the definition, because the term “dead vaccines” is used inconsistently, even by experts. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) explains, for example, that since the Novavax product does not contain any viruses that can replicate, it can be “equated with dead vaccines”. This broad definition also includes mRNA and vector vaccines.

The Federal Ministry of Research defines the term “dead vaccine” more narrowly and includes such vaccines that contain components or individual molecules of the pathogen, including the Novavax vaccine.

According to the even narrower definition that inactivated vaccines must contain the actual virus or at least parts of it, the Novavax vaccine does not belong to this group. After all, it does not contain any killed virus components that are obtained directly from the coronavirus, but genetically engineered virus proteins.

Can the Novavax vaccine be used soon if approved?

At the beginning of August, the EU Commission signed a purchase agreement with Novavax on behalf of the member states for up to 100 million vaccine doses this year and next. The contract also includes an option for 100 million more vaccine doses in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The German Ministry of Health has already planned the vaccine for the coming year.