2023-10-31 22:04:17
The European authority gave the green light this Tuesday, October 31, for the use of the anti-Covid vaccine Nuvaxovid adapted to the Omicron XBB.1.5 sub-variant, closely monitored by the French health authorities.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced this Tuesday that it had given the green light to Novavax’s anti-Covid vaccine adapted to the Omicron XBB.1.5 sub-variant for adults and children over 12 years old.
The EMA says it has analyzed “laboratory data showing that the adapted vaccine is capable of triggering an adequate immune response against XBB.1.5”.
In this third autumn after the discovery of Covid-19, European health authorities fear that a poor vaccine booster campaign is the cause of a resurgence of the virus – much less worrying for several months and in decline in recent weeks . This is why laboratories adapt their vaccines to the dominant sub-variants.
A variant to follow in France
The XBB.1.5 subvariant is descended from XBB.1, itself descended from XBB which is a recombination of BJ.1 and BA.2.75. To date, it is one of the three variants to follow in France, according to Public Health France (SpF).
The XBB.1.5 variant represented 13% of interpretable sequences for the week of October 2 in mainland France.
The EMA had already approved at the end of August an adapted version of the anti-Covid vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech to counter infection by this sub-variant. The vaccine has since been distributed in France in the autumn vaccination booster campaign which opened on October 2.
According to the Minister of Health, on October 23, “1.5 million Covid boosters” had been carried out “including 75% for vulnerable groups”. This represented 4% of people aged 65 and over who received a booster dose according to a report published on October 18 by SpF.
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