Michelle Funchess with the Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services Immunization Program says the most recently updated vaccine, called Novavax, could be on its way to Montana in the coming days.
“I would expect their shipping to be rolling out here in the next week or two. That’s typically what we start to see,” Funchess said on September 4.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to the updated Novavax vaccine on August 30 for people 12 years of age and older.
According to the FDA, Novavax is a protein-based vaccine. That means it provides immunity by including a small amount of the virus it protects against, much like flu vaccines.
Moderna and Pfizer also updated their vaccines, which use mRNA to train the body to produce virus-repelling proteins.
Yellowstone County health officer Jon Forte said the county is providing the latest Pfizer vaccine to people 5 years of age and older.
“The others are coming soon,” he said. “And so we’ll be seeking to get the updated Moderna vaccine as well as the updated [Novavax] vaccine, but the one that we have in house today and readily available for all patients over 5 is the Pfizer vaccine.”
Further west in Park County, health officer Laurel Desnick says the county’s public health department has been using the Moderna vaccine for people 12 and up, and they plan to stick with the latest version.
“It’s a common vaccine, we know how to use it, we know how well tolerated it’s been by our population, and so we’ve just made that decision,” said Desnick. “It’s hard for a small health department to stock multiple vaccines because they can be very expensive.”
The state encourages people to consult their health provider about vaccine recommendations.
