Little demand for Novavax vaccine – a new flop?

New vaccine
Novavax demand lower than expected: is the hopeful flopping?

New impetus – that’s what the federal government wants for the vaccination campaign, because progress is declining. The Robert Koch Institute reported a little more than 100,000 doses administered on Tuesday. A week earlier there were around 50,000 more. This means that 75.5 percent of the German population has been vaccinated twice. Meanwhile, 57 percent received a refresher.

In order to combat the virus effectively, however, a higher vaccination rate is required. Health experts agree on this, even if Omikron apparently entails a lower risk of severe courses and an overload of the health care system.

But the head of the Corona crisis team, Lieutenant General Carsten Breuer, is optimistic. Mainly because a new vaccine has been available in Germany since the end of February. “With the Novavax vaccine, we now have a new opportunity to convince those who have previously decided against mRNA vaccines to be vaccinated,” said Breuer of the “Wirtschaftswoche”.

According to the vaccination dashboard, almost 24 percent of the German population is currently unvaccinated. However, no vaccine has yet been approved for a good five percent of them because they are four years old or younger. A good 19 percent are among the vaccination skeptics or hesitators who need to be convinced.

Is the new vaccine really an alternative?

With the new active ingredient, the government could have a trump card up its sleeve. Nuvaxovid from the pharmaceutical manufacturer Novavax is a protein vaccine that is considered proven by vaccine skeptics. Many have concerns about new vaccine technologies, including vector and mRNA vaccines. Surveys confirm this. In the Cosmo study at the end of 2021, unvaccinated people stated that they trusted classic vaccines more and were therefore more willing to be vaccinated.

According to information from the German Press Agency, the first deliveries of the vaccine arrived at the Bundeswehr in Quakenbrück, Lower Saxony, last Thursday. Deliveries to the countries began on Friday. However, the health ministers had spoken out in favor of first administering the active substance to medical staff, because from mid-March there will be a facility-related vaccination requirement. The vaccine was sometimes injected at the weekend in non-priority people. According to the German Association of General Practitioners, the new vaccine has not yet been delivered to the practices.

But even if the time comes: According to the association, the hoped-for vaccination boom could not materialize. “In the practices, there have so far only been isolated inquiries from patients about the Novavax vaccine,” said the chairman Ulrich Weigeldt of the editorial network Germany. “According to the current status, it is at least questionable whether the new vaccine will lead to a significant increase in vaccination rates.”

This is surprising, since vaccination skeptics have always stated that they want to be vaccinated against the corona virus as soon as there is an alternative to the vaccines currently available. The fact that the rush to the practices is developing differently than hoped suggests that many people are not concerned with the manufacturing process of the vaccines. In fact, the reassurances may have been just an excuse to avoid vaccination.

Old problems remain

“Of course, anyone who has not been vaccinated so far is difficult to convince,” said Weigeldt, head of the association, before naming a well-known problem: “It is obvious that these people need a different way of addressing them.” The current communication campaign with the well-known slogans does not reach them. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) only presented the “Vaccination helps” campaign in January – a 38 million euro project that has so far not taken into account the hoped-for benefit. Since then, the vaccination rate has hardly changed.

According to Lieutenant General Breuer, the Corona Crisis Management Team is now planning an information campaign that is as uniform as possible in order to reach the vaccine-skeptical groups. This is intended to achieve the goal originally set for the end of January of immunizing 80 percent of the population. The new deadline is the beginning of April, by then another 30 million vaccinations should have been administered, Breuer told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.

In the end, is only compulsory vaccination left to solve the problem? North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) is definitely in favor. “Vaccination is the only way to get out of the pandemic permanently,” he told the “Bild am Sonntag”. However, it is becoming “more and more difficult to reach people who have not yet been vaccinated”.

The Parliament should decide on the vaccination obligation without party pressure. But there is still disagreement about the design. The FDP in particular expressed skepticism. The Bundestag is to debate the applications submitted so far for the first time on March 17th, and a decision will be made at the end of March or beginning of April. It is possible that the vaccination campaign will then gain new momentum.

Swell:Federal Ministry of Health, “Pharmacy magazine”, Deutschlandfunk, Editorial network Germanywith material from DPA and AFP

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