The World Welcomes Its First Plant-Based Covid-19 Vaccine And Canada Has Approved It For Adults

The COVID-19 pandemic put the whole world under a great deal of strain over the last couple of years. Healthcare workers and medical services were overwhelmed with the onslaught of patient cases. So, it came as a sigh of relief when the Covid-19 vaccines were finally developed to fight various variants of the lethal virus. But if you prefer plant-based products and have been hesitant to get the covid-19 vaccine for precisely this reason, then fear no more. There’s good news you can look forward to, for the world's first plant-based COVID-19 vaccine was recently developed. 

It has been created by Medicago and tested for safety. The heartening news is that Health Canada has already approved it for use in adults, which speaks volumes of its safety and ingenuity.

Their plant-powered development process

The plant-based shot is a home-grown one named Covifenz. It is devised with a technology that uses plants to create non-infectious particles that impersonate the virus. It is a two-dose shot that uses adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) to enhance the immune response. What’s intriguing is that this is the sixth COVID-19 shot to obtain government authorization in the country.

Based in Quebec, the private company promised to provide 76 million doses of the vaccine to the Canadian government. Medicago confirmed that they will try to complete the order as soon as possible.

The vaccine’s efficacy

Studies were conducted to gauge the efficacy of this vaccine and it presented results where people aged 18 to 64 years saw that the shot was 75.3% effective and protected them against Delta variant of COVID-19. Experts observed that the vaccine was 71% successful in safeguarding people against all variants. There was an exception, which was Omicron; however, this was because it was not prevalent when the study was undertaken.

They plan booster doses soon and vaccines for children

Marc-André D’Aoust, Executive Vice President of innovation, development and medical affairs at Medicago affirms, "We're at a stage where we're ramping up capacity to meet the supply agreement. The company will be sending material for fill/finish and packaging very soon. Medicago plans to test the shot as a booster dose and among children. Furthermore, Medicago is preparing to study an Omicron-tailored version of its vaccine."

“Medicago intends to apply for approval of the shot in Japan and is also in talks with the U.S. government and regulatory authorities in Europe and Asia for the vaccine,” D’Aoust concludes.

Interestingly, the country of Canada has greenlit more than a few vaccines counting those based on mRNA technology from Moderna (MRNA.O) and Pfizer (PFE.N). Much more recently, Canada approved Novavax's (NVAX.O) protein-based vaccine for use in adults.

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