The combination of influenza and COVID vaccines may provide high levels of protection against two life-threatening diseases COVID-19 and influenza with a single regimen.
Early-stage trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of combined seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccines has been started by US firm Novavax. The trial will be conducted on 640 healthy adults between the age of 50-70 years in Australia. All the participants will be those who have either been previously infected with COVID-19 or given an authorized COVID-19 vaccine at least eight weeks prior to the study.
Novavax's recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373 and NanoFlu™ vaccine candidates with saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant is formulated into COVID-NanoFlu Combination Vaccine).
Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine has demonstrated 90.4% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, and showed 100% protection against moderate and severe disease. NanoFlu have also previously demonstrated strong results as standalone vaccines in Phase 3 clinical trials.
These safety data results from the trials indicate that the investigational vaccine was generally well-tolerated.
The COVID-NanoFlu Combination Vaccine trials are expected to be launched by the end of 2021.
This study will be the first-of-its-kind to evaluate the vaccine's potential to induce a robust immune response, augmented by Matrix-M adjuvant against two life-threatening diseases simultaneously.
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