Singapore has approved the use of the Nuvaxovid vaccine by Novavax in its National Vaccination Programme for individuals aged 18 years and above for both the primary and booster vaccination shot.
This follows the Health Sciences Authority’s (HSA) interim authorization of the vaccine under the Pandemic Special Access route.
According to the press release, the first batch of the Nuvaxovid vaccine is expected to arrive in Singapore in the coming months if there are no disruptions to the schedule.
New Non-mRNA Vaccine Option
Individuals who take the Nuvaxovid vaccine are to receive two doses taken three weeks apart as part of the primary series. One dose of the vaccine is recommended by Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) to be taken as a booster shot five months after the last dose of the primary series vaccination.With its approval, Nuvaxovid will be a new non-mRNA vaccine offered in Singapore, apart from Sinovac and Sinopharm’s vaccines.
Singapore currently offers two mRNA vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna, and offers three non-mRNA vaccines, Sinovac-Coronavac, Sinopharm, and now Nuvaxovid.
According to the HSA, clinical trial studies have shown that two doses of the Nuvaxovid vaccine demonstrated a 90 percent efficacy against symptomatic infection and 100 percent against severe disease with the wildtype SARS-CoV-2 and the Alpha variant. There is no data available on its efficacy against the Delta or Omicron variants.
These clinical trial studies were conducted in the United States, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, comprising more than 40,000 clinical trial participants aged between 18 and 95 years.
HSA has noted that recipients of the Nuvaxovid vaccine may experience side effects including injection site pain and/or tenderness, fatigue, headache, and muscle pain.
It also added, “As with all vaccines, there will always be a small proportion of susceptible persons who may experience severe allergic reactions upon vaccination,” and that those who develop these severe allergic reactions to the first dose of Nuvaxovid should not be given the second dose.
The safety and efficacy data in severely immunocompromised individuals and those under the age of 18 is also not available yet, and hence the HSA cannot make a recommendation for the use of Nuvaxovid for these individuals.
MOH Recommends Nuvaxovid Over Sinovac-Coronavac
MOH also recommends Nuvaxovid over Sinovac-Coronavac for those medically ineligible to take mRNA vaccines “in view of the lower efficacy of the Sinovac-CoronaVac vaccine.”The ministry also added that the “Sinovac-CoronaVac vaccine should only be used by persons who are medically ineligible for the mRNA vaccines and Nuvaxovid.”
A local study conducted from October to November 2021 by Singapore’s National Centre for Infectious Diseases and the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Data Management and Analytics Team found that people who received two doses of the Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine had lower protection than those who received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty or Moderna mRNA vaccine.
The analysis showed that the protection of two doses of the Sinovac vaccine against severe disease was 60 percent, lower than that of Pfizer’s 90 percent and Moderna’s 97 percent.
