Health Canada has approved the country’s first protein-based COVID-19 vaccine for adults.
Novavax’s Nuvaxovid vaccine received approval from the federal health agency on Thursday.
Overall clinic trials show the vaccine is 90 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 100 per cent effective at preventing severe disease, according to Health Canada.
“Preliminary data available at this time suggests that the vaccine also produces neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant, but more data is still needed,” said Dr. Supriya Sharma, senior medical advisor at Health Canada.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) continues to recommend mRNA vaccines for most people due to their “excellence protection and well-established safety profiles,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer.
NACI recommends that the Novavax vaccine may be offered to people who are unable or willing to receive an mRNA vaccine.
Sharma said both vaccine types have the same objective — to expose a person’s immune system to the SARS-CoV2 spike protein and activate the immune system to make antibodies — but their approach is different.
“mRNA vaccines contain molecular manufacturing instructions for our cells to make the spike protein. With a protein subunit vaccine, a modified version of the spike protein itself is delivered,” said Sharma.
“These vaccines cannot cause COVID-19 because they only contain small purified pieces of proteins and not the virus itself.”
Tam said having more authorized COVID-19 vaccines can help remove barriers to vaccination by providing another option to adults who have not yet received a vaccine.
She said the first doses are expected to arrive in Canada in March.
