A new vaccine by Medicago has become the worlds first plant-based vaccine to be approved against COVID-19. Health Canada authorized the use of the vaccine in adults on Thursday.

This two-dose vaccine uses an adjuvant from GlaxoSmithKline to enhance the immune response. This is the sixth COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized in the country. The vaccine, named Covifenz, involves a technology that uses plants in the development process to produce non-infectious particles mimicking the virus.

It has received regulatory clearance for use in individuals aged 18 to 64 years after results from a late-stage trial revealed that the vaccine was 75.3% effective against the Delta variant. It had an overall efficacy of 71% against all variants of the coronavirus except Omicron, which was not prevalent when the study was being conducted. The company now plans to test the vaccine as a booster dose and in children… (Reuters, February 25, 2022)