Only about 1,000 COVID-19 shots from the American business Novavax have been given out in Belgium to patients allergic to previous vaccines.
The vaccines have been available since the start of March month. The authorities hoped that they could serve as an alternative for the individuals with the allergies as well as those hesitant to get vaccinated with the new technology of mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna.
Moreover, the interest in the Novavax vaccine has been lower than it was expected as well as more than 420,000 of the doses are being kept refrigerated for the time being, as per the official figures from the Vaccination Taskforce on Friday, April 15.
During an interview, Dirk Ramaekers, who is a part of the Taskforce, mentioned, “We thought there would be more interest. In addition to the people who react allergically or badly to Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, we had thought that there would be a third group of people interested in this vaccine: those who had developed an irrational fear of being vaccinated with the mRNA vaccines.”
Along with this, till now, about 575 the residents of Belgium have received the initial dose of the Novavax, around 281 of the individuals have got the booster shot with the vaccine, adding up to just under 1,000 shots.
The Novavax vaccine works on a totally different path as compared to the mRNA vaccines as well as it appears to convince far fewer vaccine-hesitant individuals than it has been expected.
Ramaekers stated, “The fact that we are at the end of the vaccination campaign probably also has something to do with it.”
Furthermore, the vaccine against the COVID-19 was planned for the autumn of 2021 at the time when the Delta variant was still in total circulation in Belgium, but the doses were only delivered in February as well as March 2022.
