Novavax delay blow to Covid19 vaccine rollout

Vaccine experts fear Australia’s hopes of reaching herd immunity by the end of the year have been dashed after vaccine manufacturer Novavax announced further delays in filing for approvals until July.

Vaccine experts fear Australia’s hopes of reaching herd immunity by the end of the year have been dashed after vaccine manufacturer Novavax announced further delays in filing for approvals until July at the earliest, further pushing back the reopening of international borders.

The Australian government has pre-ordered 51 million doses of the US-produced Novavax vaccine, which was originally meant to be available by the second half of this year, with medical experts now warning it may not be available in Australia until late this year or even next.

Novavax chief executive Stanley Erck said on a conference call with analysts flagged on Tuesday that the company would not file for regulatory approval in the EU, US and UK until the third quarter, meaning September at the latest, due to a “material” shortage with no timeline for smaller countries like Australia.

The Novavax jab has become one of the most closely watched vaccines in development, due to its high efficacy of 90 per overall, including high protection against new variants, and promising safety record in early trails.

Burnet Institute epidemiologist Professor Mike Toole said the delay was “disappointing” given the vaccine’s promise, which had destroyed his hopes of fully vaccinating the population until the end of this year or even next year.

“I had hoped it would be the hope for achieving herd immunity this year, but it‘s looking mathematically impossible,” he said.

“Since Novavax is not applying for authorisation until the third quarter of this year, so they shifted it from this quarter to the next quarter and they didn‘t say which month, that could be anywhere between July to September.”

Professor Toole said Australia needed a third vaccine to make up for the shortfalls of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs, as the rest of the world also battling widespread supply issues with the Pfizer vaccine and hesitancy towards the AstraZeneca jab on the rise after it was linked to a rare clotting disorder.

“I think it was one of our big hopes right now,” he said.

“We’ve got only two vaccines, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, we can‘t give AstraZeneca to the under 50s, so we’re not giving Pfizer to the over 50s, and we just don’t have enough Pfizer to vaccinate a lot of people.

“We need a third vaccine, or even a fourth, to help us diversify to start giving to the under 50s. It looks like we won’t get Novavax until the end of the year, we won’t be head of the queue, so we’re really stuck with those two vaccines.”

“I can’t see it speeding up unless we achieve those things, another vaccine and an increased supply of the Pfizer vaccine, without that I can’t see the program accelerating, it will get better but not as fast as I think we would like to achieve herd immunity.”

ANU infectious disease expert professor Peter Collignon agreed Australia’s vaccine rollout would likely be pushed back by the slowed arrival of Novavax, due to it being easier to store and transport at regular refrigeration temperatures than its competitors.

“It means it‘s more likely to delay it,” he said.

“Novavax was a more traditional vaccine in some ways, as a modified protein vaccine, being delivered for younger people in particular it would have been the vaccine that would have been used for them. And it had the advantage of not being stored at -70C. The AstraZeneca vaccine is what we are recommending for people over the age of 50 so to vaccinate people under the age of 50 it was with the Pfizer vaccine and the Novavax vaccine, and there are still supply issues with Pfizer globally.”

Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said the extent of the delay could not be known until it was known how “serious” the supply problems were, adding that Australia would be behind bigger countries in the queue.”