Is a booster dose required for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine?

Do I need a booster if I was given the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against COVID-19?

Probably at some point, but health officials are still collecting the data needed to determine that.

In the United States, it is planned to apply reinforcements in the fall to people who received the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, so that recipients of the single-dose J&J vaccine may be wondering how much they still have. protected.

All vaccines used in the United States — including that of J&J — are still doing their job of preventing hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19.

“I don’t think there’s any sign that the J&J vaccine is failing in its main task”, Said the doctor Amesh Adalja, A specialist in infectious diseases at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

While still protecting against severe COVID-19, U.S. officials plan to offer Pfizer and Moderna reinforcements eight months after the second dose based on evidence that the effectiveness against the infection decreases over time. In addition, vaccines do not appear to be as effective against the highly contagious delta variant as they were against previous versions of viruses.

The director of public health, Vivek MurphyHe said reinforcements “will probably be needed” for the J&J vaccine. Authorities expect more data to make the decision in the coming weeks.

This is partly due to the fact that the distribution of the J&J did not begin until March, several months after that of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. J&J inoculation is manufactured differently. And there’s more information on how Pfizer and Moderna vaccines behave against the delta variant because they’re more used in countries where the variant hit before it spread to the United States.

There is some real world information showing how the J&J vaccine against the delta variant behaves. A huge study of health workers in South Africa showed that the vaccine maintained 71% effectiveness against hospitalization for the variant and between 91% and 96% effectiveness against death. And the researchers said most infections in people who were already inoculated were mild.

J&J also presented laboratory data on antibodies that fight the virus and indicate that the vaccine protects against the delta variant for at least eight months. Another small lab study has raised questions about whether a two-dose strategy would work better, an option J&J is studying.

Another separate question is whether people with severely weakened immune systems should receive additional doses as part of their initial vaccination, as they do not respond equally well to any of the inoculations. For now, the government recommends a third dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for organ transplant recipients and others in this group. But he is still collecting data before making a similar recommendation for another dose of the J&J vaccine.