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Johnson & Johnson applied for Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine after publishing data last week that showed it was about 66% effective. in protection against the virus.
If the J&J application is approved, it would be the third Covid-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S. behind the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The Pfizer vaccine was approved by the FDA on December 11 and Moderna was authorized a week later.
U.S. officials and Wall Street analysts are eagerly anticipating the release of the J&J vaccine, which could happen as early as this month. President Joe Biden is trying to pick up the pace of vaccinations in the U.S. and experts say his administration will need a lot of drugs and vaccines to defeat the virus, which has killed more than 450,000 Americans in the past year.
Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses administered between three or four weeks apart, the J&J vaccine requires only one dose, facilitating logistics for healthcare providers.
J&J said on January 29 that its vaccine was globally 66% effective in protecting against Covid-19. The vaccine, however, appeared to be less potent against other variants. The level of protection was 57% in South Africa, where a new highly contagious strain called B.1.351 is spreading rapidly. South Carolina officials detected the first known case in the United States of this strain last month.
Infectious disease experts point out that J&J numbers cannot be used as a direct comparison with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which were found to be 95% and 94% effective, respectively. This is because the J&J vaccine is a single dose and the company trial was conducted when there were more infections and new, more contagious variants.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said the most important finding from the J&J data was that the vaccine appeared to be 85% effective in preventing serious disease.
“The most important thing, more important than preventing someone from having sore and sore throats, is to prevent people from‘ suffering from serious illnesses, ’” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a call to journalists in January 29. “This will relieve stress, suffering and death in this epidemic.”
The FDA has indicated that it would authorize a safe and at least 50% effective vaccine. In comparison, the flu vaccine generally reduces the risk of getting the flu by 40% to 60% compared to people who are not inoculated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
J&J has said it plans to send the vaccine between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit. In comparison, the Pfizer vaccine should be stored in ultra-cold freezers that keep it between 112 and 76 degrees Fahrenheit negative. The Moderna vaccine should be sent between 13 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit negative.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had reached an agreement with Janssen, J & J’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, worth about $ 1 billion for every 100 million doses of its vaccine. The agreement gives the federal government the option to order an additional 200 million doses, according to the announcement.
This is a developing story. Please check for updates again.