Jakarta, Nov. 1 (BNA): Indonesia has granted the world’s first emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, which uses a different technology than the current footage, biotech company Novavax said Monday.
The vaccine is easier to store and transport than some other picks, which could allow it to play an important role in boosting supplies in poor countries around the world, the AP reports.
The two-dose Novavax vaccine is made from lab copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. This is quite different from the widely used mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna which provide genetic instructions for the body to make its own spike protein.
The emergency authorization of the vaccine is a “very important step” for Indonesia’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, said Indonesian epidemiologist Dickie Bodeman.
“It would be much easier to transport, store and distribute this vaccine in a place like Indonesia, where we have many islands,” he said.
In June, US-based Novavax announced that the vaccine had been shown to be nearly 90% effective against symptoms of COVID-19 in a study of nearly 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico. She added that she also worked against the variables circulating in those countries at the time.
The company said the side effects were mild and included injection site soreness, headache, aches and pains and fatigue.
Novavax said it has already applied for a license for the vaccine in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Australia, India and the Philippines.
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