TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) confirmed on Thursday (March 24) that the country is in the process of purchasing two million doses of Novavax Inc.’s COVID vaccine.
CECC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) convener Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎) on Thursday told radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻) that a batch of the Novavax vaccine, which has been approved by the World Health Organization, is being purchased by Taiwan. CECC head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) also told the media before a session of the Legislative Yuan that morning that Taiwan is expected to buy two million doses of the vaccine through COVAX, but the timeframe for the completion of the purchase and distribution of doses is still uncertain.
Lee said that at present, the Novavax vaccine has completed human trials for 12 to 17-year-old adolescents, demonstrated 82% efficacy against the Delta variant, and was "well-tolerated with no safety signals identified." Phase 3 trials of Novavax have showed an overall vaccine efficacy of 90%, which is only 4.1% less than Moderna and 5% less than Pfizer BioNTech.
In addition, side effects associated with mRNA vaccines, such as juvenile myocarditis, are less likely to occur with Novavax, which is a protein subunit vaccine. Novavax's jab, which goes by the brand name Nuvaxovid, is expected to soon receive U.S. FDA approval.
Lee said that based on Novavax's research, only 0.7% to 0.8% of its vaccine recipients had a fever, which is much lower than the 20% to 30% of mRNA recipients.
