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Johnson & Johnson filed with the Food and Drug Administration for emergency approval to use its coronavirus vaccine after data was released last week showing that protection against the virus was about 66% effective.
If the application is approved by J&J, this will be the third Covid-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in the US, after vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Pfizer’s vaccine was approved by the FDA on December 11, and Moderna’s vaccine was approved a week later.
US officials and Wall Street analysts are eagerly awaiting J & J’s vaccine approval, which could come as early as this month. President Joe Biden is trying to speed up the pace of vaccination in the US, and experts say his government will need a range of drugs and vaccines to beat the virus that killed more than 450,000 Americans in the past year.
Unlike Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, which require two doses three to four weeks apart, J & J’s vaccine only requires one dose, making logistics easier for healthcare providers.
J&J said on Jan. 29 that its vaccine was 66% overall effective against Covid-19. However, the vaccine appeared to be less effective against other variants. The level of protection was only 57% in South Africa, where a new, highly contagious strain called B.1.351 is spreading rapidly. South Carolina officials discovered the first known US case of this strain last month.
Infectious disease experts suggest that J & J’s numbers cannot be used as a direct comparison with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which were found to be 95% and 94% effective, respectively. That’s because J & J’s vaccine is a single dose, and the company’s study came about when there were more infections and new, more contagious variants.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said the key finding from the J&J data was that the vaccine was 85% effective at preventing major diseases.
“The most important thing, which is more important than preventing someone from getting a pain and a sore throat, is preventing people from getting serious illnesses,” said the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, speaking to reporters on Jan. January. 29. “This will alleviate so much stress and human suffering and death in this epidemic.”
The FDA has announced that it will approve a vaccine that is safe and at least 50% effective. In comparison, the flu vaccine generally reduces people’s risk of influenza by 40% to 60% compared to people who are not vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
J&J has announced that it will ship the vaccine at 36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit. In comparison, Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored in ultra-cold freezers that are between negative 112 and negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Moderna vaccine must be delivered between 13 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had signed a contract with Janssen, J & J’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, worth approximately $ 1 billion for 100 million doses of its vaccine. The deal gives the federal government the opportunity to order another 200 million cans, according to the announcement.
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