Novavax has been granted its first emergency use authorisation in Indonesia for COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373, and expects other regulators in India, the Philippines and other countries to follow suit in the coming weeks.

Third world nations have been short changed during the 4 months that the pandemic spread throughout the world.  Many nations have even donated millions of doses of vaccines produced in their own countries. Canada recently agreed to donate several million dollars to the United Nations fund for distributing covid vaccines to those less developed nations.

Indonesia has applied for an emergency authorization for it's vaccine, NVX-COV2373. Nations in their own regional market place, including India. and the Phillipines will also join their effort.  These three nations may pool their resources to produce vacccines for many millions of people.  Local sources for vacccine will eliminate the challenges of distribution,  such a refrigeration, spoilage, and transportation.

Indonesia falls into that category as it has a fragmented healthcare system, despite universal access,  which is amplified by the geographical hurdles associated with being an archipelago with 275 million people spread across 6,000 islands. Initial shipments into the country are expected to begin “imminently,” said Novavax.

The vaccine is the first based on recombinant protein to be approved anywhere in the world, and has the key advantage over many of the currently approved jabs as it can be stored at regular refrigeration temperatures. That makes it well suited to distribution in countries where healthcare delivery is more challenging.

Recombinant protein is produced by recombinant DNA using bacteria (E.Coli) as a manufacturing process. E.coli  is the manufacturing plant for recombinant DNA and in turn. recombinant proteins

Why is E. coli used for transformation?

Other cell types including mammalian cells,  yeast, insect cells, or other eukaryocytic cells could be used. E. coli is a preferred host for protein production due to its rapid growth and the ability to express proteins at very high levels. Bacterial conjugation can be used to transfer large DNA fragments from one bacterium to another.

The following references explain in further the use of recombinant DNA/Protein for the manufacture of other Covid 19 vaccines.

Rather than using messenger RNA (m-RNA) to produce a 'spike protein' from the corona virus, the Indian Covid vaccine is manufactured as an inactive viral particle.

Covax information

1. Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University. COVID-19 Dashboard. [Accessed 15 Nov 2020.]

2. World Health Organization. DRAFT landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, 12 November, 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines.

3. World Health Organization. WHO Concept for fair access and equitable allocation of COVID-19 health products. Final working version 9 September 2020. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/fair-allocation-mechanism-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-the-covax-facility.

4. Emanuel EJ, Persad G, Kern A, et al. An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation. Science 2020;369:1309-12. 10.1126/science.abe2803  [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]

5. COVAX. Commitment Agreements, September 30, 2020. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/pr/COVAX_CA_COIP_List_COVAX_PR_30-09.pdf.

6. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. COVAX, the ACT-Accelerator Vaccines Pillar: Insuring Accelerated Vaccine Development and Manufacture, 2020. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/COVAX-Pillar-background.pdf.

7. Gavi COVAX Facility. Over US$ 2 billion raised to support equitable access to COVID vaccines with additional US$ 5 billion needed in 2021. Press release, 13 November 2020. https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/over-us-2-billion-raised-suppor

Novavax gets first authorisation for its COVID-19 jab -