![]() Novavax, along with the other major vaccine companies, are developing booster vaccines to target the B.1.351 variant. Protection against severe disease however was 100%, indicating the vaccine will still be important in reducing hospitalisation and death due to this variant. The efficacy of Novavax’s shot dropped to 55% in protecting against COVID-19 symptoms from this variant. Less encouraging is protection against the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa, which can evade immunity that developed in response to earlier versions of the virus. This is good news because the B.1.1.7 variant is now dominant in many European countries, is more transmissible and deadly than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, and is responsible for most of the cases that have arisen recently in Australia. In the UK trial, the vaccine maintained strong protection against disease in people infected with the B.1.1.7 “UK variant”, demonstrating 86% efficacy. ![]() ![]() Novavax includes an adjuvant based on a natural product known as saponin, an extract from the bark of the Chilean soapbark tree. The goal of these adjuvants is to mimic the way the real virus would activate the immune system, to generate maximum protective immunity. In order for these subunit vaccines to generate strong protective responses, they need to include molecules that boost your immune system, called “adjuvants”. The spike proteins are assembled into tiny particles called “nanoparticles” which aim to resemble the structure of the coronavirus, however they cannot replicate once injected and the vaccine cannot cause you to get COVID-19. The Novavax vaccine uses a version of the spike protein made in the lab. This is part of the other COVID-19 vaccines in use but in a different form. The protein part of the vaccine is the coronavirus’ “ spike protein”. It’s a “ protein subunit” vaccine these are vaccines that introduce a part of the virus to the immune system, but don’t contain any live components of the virus. The vaccine also uses a different technology to the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. Comparing Australia’s three COVID-19 vaccine options. Jamie Triccas, made with BioRender, CC BY-ND
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