(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of Novavax Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, clearing the way for a shot whose more traditional technology has raised hopes of wider acceptance among vaccine skeptics.
It is the fourth COVID vaccine to be authorized for use in adults in the United States.
The clearance comes more than a month after a panel of FDA advisers overwhelmingly recommended its authorization. Earlier this week, the U.S. government said it had secured 3.2 million Novavax vaccine doses, which it plans to release once the company finishes quality testing after getting clearance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the next few weeks. More than two-thirds of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated with shots from Moderna Inc, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson. Novavax and U.S. health officials hope that people who have opted not to take Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine, which are based on the groundbreaking messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, will instead opt for the company’s protein-based shot.
“Authorizing an additional COVID-19 vaccine expands the available vaccine options for the prevention of COVID-19, including the most severe outcomes that can occur such as hospitalization and death,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a statement.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi and Devika Syamnath)
