(Ottawa) Health Canada has authorized an updated COVID-19 vaccine from pharmaceutical company Novavax, which targets the XBB.1.5 subvariant.
“Today’s expanded authorization will support the Canadian government’s strong commitment to providing its citizens with effective options, such as our non-mRNA protein vaccine, in the campaign against currently emerging COVID-19 variants. circulation,” said John C. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Novavax, in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.
Nuvaxovid is a protein subunit vaccine, which means it contains harmless virus fragments.
The currently available vaccines targeting the XBB variant, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to teach the body’s cells how to make the virus’s spike protein and then generate a immune response against it.
The reformulation for the XBB variant of the mRNA vaccines – Comirnaty and Spikevax – received authorization from Health Canada in September.
The new vaccine is called Nuvaxovid and is approved for people 12 years and older.
mRNA injections are authorized for younger children, aged six months and older.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommends that everyone aged six months and older receive the XBB.1.5 vaccine if six months or more have passed since their last vaccination against COVID-19 or since their last infection with COVID-19.
It has not yet released specific guidelines for Novavax’s XBB formulation, but those “will be forthcoming,” an update to the Canadian Immunization Guide online said Tuesday.
NACI generally releases its vaccine guidelines after Health Canada authorizes them.
The company Novavax, based in Maryland, United States, had stressed the importance of having an option for people who cannot or do not want to accept an mRNA injection.
Pending approval by Health Canada, the federal government said it wanted to manufacture the Novavax vaccine in Canada, in the National Research Council’s biological products manufacturing center in Montreal.
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