The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday approved the vaccine from the American firm Novavax against the coronavirus, with more classic technology and different from vaccines already widely used in the European Union.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had already authorized the marketing of this vaccine, Nuvaxovid, on Monday.
In a statement, the WHO said this is the 10th COVID vaccine approved as an emergency.
It joins the anti-COVID Covaxin vaccines from the Indian Bharat Biontech, Covovax produced by the Serum Institute of India under license from the American Novavax, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca (WHO has two AZ vaccines including the one made in India), Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Sinovac on the emergency approvals list.
The WHO specifies that the Covovax, which it approved urgently on December 17, is derived from Nuvaxovid. The two vaccines “are made using the same technologies.”
“They require two doses and are stable at refrigerated temperatures between 2 and 8 ° C,” she says.
In a separate document, the WHO Expert Committee on Immunization recommends the use of Nuvaxovid from 18 years of age and states that doses should be administered “every 3 to 4 weeks”.
“The vaccine should not be given at an interval of less than 3 weeks,” they insist.
Approval by the WHO facilitates international recognition of the vaccine and especially for UN agencies and the Covax system – created to facilitate access to vaccination in poor countries – to use it.
Nuvaxovid is a so-called “subunit” vaccine, based on proteins that trigger an immune response, without viruses.
The technology, more conventional than that of previously licensed vaccines, is similar to that used in the decades-old hepatitis B and pertussis vaccines that are widely used around the world.
Main clinical trials – one in Britain and one in the United States and Mexico – involving more than 45,000 people, have shown “around 90%” effectiveness in reducing the number of symptomatic cases of Covid .