Rush to Novavax in County?

- "Not even a breeze"

Created: 03/03/2022, 06:30

By: Felicitas Bogner

The vaccination start with Novavax is probably planned for this week.

"It feels good to be able to offer more choice © dpa

These days it is to be delivered to the vaccination centers: the new vaccine from Novavax.

So far, however, demand has been low.

General practitioners are not surprised by this development.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

– In the coming days, the vaccination centers in the district should start injecting Novavax.

Michael Heigl, spokesman for the district office, says: "Actually, Novavax should have been delivered this week, but so far nothing has arrived." It is assumed that the delivery will be received these days.

"Only then will we see how many doses we've been allocated," he says.

The vaccine is a classically manufactured vaccine, which differs from the mRNA vaccines such as that of Biontech.

There was great hope that some unvaccinated people who had reservations about the mRNA technology would still decide in favor of the spades.

In the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, however, disillusionment is emerging.

So far there has been “hardly any demand” from the Tölz internist Ursula Poley.

So far, only five of her patients have expressed interest in the new vaccine, she reports.

"In my experience, someone can be vaccinated or not." The decision is usually independent of the composition of the preparations.

Basically, she would offer Novavax in her practice.

"But only if there is enough demand."

New vaccine not particularly in demand

Something similar is reported by Dr.

Matthias Hügelberger, family doctor in Bad Tölz and spokesman for the Tölz family doctors.

"Not a lot of people asked us about it," he says.

"The majority of my patients are already mRNA-vaccinated, and there are only a fraction of the unvaccinated who are now reporting," he reports, adding: "They are ideologues, it's not about the content, it's about the fact that they don't want to be determined by someone else," sayshnenberger.

Even with Novavax you get ten vaccinations out of one bottle.

“Of course you have to make sure that you don’t have to throw anything away.

That’s why you can only offer it in a practice if ten people are vaccinated with it every day.”

For the time being, general practitioners would have to obtain the new vaccine from vaccination centers anyway – and not from pharmacies.

To this end, the first Novavax delivery is to be reserved for employees in the healthcare sector.

So the general practitioners have to wait and see when and how much Novavax vaccine they will get for their patients, explains Dr.

Jörg Lohse, general practitioner from Münsing.

"The whole prioritization could also be obsolete, since the demand from neither side has been particularly high so far," he adds.

rush?

"Not even a breeze"

As the medical coordinator of the fight against the pandemic in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Lohse has a district-wide overview: the demand for the inactivated vaccine is not high anywhere.

"A week ago there were just 50 registrations at the vaccination center," he reports.

So far, 15 practices have expressed an interest in using Novavax.

It is interesting that the majority of the doctors who requested the vaccine were skeptical about the mRNA vaccinations.

There can be no talk of a rush.

"It's not even a breeze." According to Lohse, the fact that many practices are reticent is correct: "There are vaccination centers that are all underutilized."

Adelheid Raifer exits.

She too would be willing to offer the vaccine.

So far, however, there has been little interest in it.

This also applies to other vaccines.

"In general, the willingness to vaccinate is declining," she says.

Raifer will therefore "probably only order a small amount" - exactly according to patient demand, "so that I don't have to throw anything away".

“It feels good to be able to offer more choice

No one is surprised at the low demand: "Those who have not yet been vaccinated remain stubborn," says Lohse.

Even before Novavax became available, he saw the argument of some opponents of vaccination that they were critical of mRNA technology as a pretext.

"Some are probably waiting for the second dead vaccine," he noticed.

But he is happy about the alternative.

“It feels good for a doctor to have multiple vaccines to choose from,” he explains.

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