Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Highly Effective Against Severe Forms Of COVID-19

By Staff, Agencies

The United States Food and Drug Agency [FDA] confirmed the effectiveness of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, in documents made public two days before a meeting of its advisory committee to examine its urgent authorization in the US.

The vaccine's efficacy was 85.9 percent against severe forms of the disease in the United States, and it was also effective against these severe forms at 81.7 percent in South Africa and 87.6 percent in Brazil.

In early February, the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson filed an application for conditional authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine with the American health authorities.

If it gets the green light from the FDA, this vaccine would be the third authorized in the United States, after those of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

It is anticipated that the FDA will grant the authorization because it has two significant advantages in terms of logistics.

First, it can be stored at refrigerator temperatures rather than requiring freezing, which would greatly facilitate its distribution. In addition, it only needs to be administered in a single dose.

The likely authorization comes at an important time, with the US having just marked its 500,000th coronavirus victim since the pandemic began almost a year ago.