WHO urgently approves Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) approved this Tuesday the vaccine against COVID-19 from the American company Novavax, based on a more classic technology and different from the drugs already widely used in the European Union.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had already authorized the marketing of this immunizer, Nuvaxovid, on Monday.

In a statement, the WHO indicated that it is the tenth emergency homologated anticovid vaccine.

It joins the Covaxin vaccines from the Indian Bharat Biontech, Covovax produced by the Serum Institute of India under license from the American Novovax; Pfizer / BioNTech; Modern; AstraZeneca (WHO counts two AZ vaccines, one of them manufactured in India), Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Sinovac.

All of these drugs seek to make the body’s immune system attack the coronavirus, but in different ways.

Novavax’s so-called protein subunit technology has been tested and used for decades to combat diseases such as hepatitis B and whooping cough. It also has the advantage of not requiring storage at very low temperatures, like other immunizers.

The Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which have dominated the global response to COVID-19, use pioneering messenger RNA technology.