Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine.Photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty
Johnson & Johnson says evidence shows that a booster of its COVID-19 vaccine can help protect individuals against severe disease and hospitalization.
In a statement released Thursday, the company says preliminary results from a real-life study of healthcare workers in South Africa show that two doses of its COVID-19 vaccine show85% effectivenessin preventing hospitalizations among the infected.
A second study conducted in United States labs also showed that the company’s vaccine will likely work as a booster for those who originally received doses of Pfizer-Biontech, per Thursday’s announcement.
The results come about a month after news of the omicron variant, which is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in South Africa,first went public.
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“We are therefore encouraged to see that boosting with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine regimen provides strong protection in a challenging real-world setting where there is an elevated risk of exposure – not just to COVID-19, but to the highly transmissible omicron variant,” she added.
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Mathai Mammen, Global Head of Research and Development for the Janssen pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson, said the study shows that the company’s vaccine “remains strong and stable over time” against COVID-19 and variants such as omicron and delta.
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In the first study, Linda-Gail Bekker of the University of Cape Town and the SAMRC determined that vaccine effectiveness increased following the booster from63% to 85%, per CNN. About 69,000 South African healthcare workers were assessed for the research.
Some experts previously suggested that the single-dose J&J vaccine is weaker than the double-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines made available in the U.S. However, the new research appears to indicate that a second dose could make the J&J vaccine more effective than originally believed.
Cleveland clinic
Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, toldABC News, “While one dose to prevent COVID was always desirable to improve vaccine access and acceptance, we now have irrefutable evidence that two doses provides significantly more protection.”
He added, “The second dose triggers the immune system to produce antibodies and memory cells that ultimately yield longer term vaccine effectiveness.”
Data from the two studies have been submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
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source: people.com
