Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine Declared Safe and Effective by US FDA

By
Shawn Ambrose
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As my grandfather once said, there’s no such thing as too many vaccines for a virus. 

I’m not quite sure why he said that at the time, considering it was in the 90s and I was just five, but it certainly rings true today.

With a global population of over 7.8 billion and a deadly virus running riot, we need all the vaccines we can get so a large enough section of Earth’s residents can get immunised.

Fortunately for us, more and more vaccines are popping up all over the world, getting approved one by one.

Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine Declared Safe and Effective by US FDA

Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot Covid-19 vaccine may soon be approved in the US for emergency use, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deemed it safe and effective.

While its efficacy isn’t as impressive as Pfizer or Modern’s vaccine, it’s still promising.

Its trial showed that the vaccine is 88% effective at preventing asymptomatic infections; 16 cases of asymptomatic infections were found in the placebo group, while there were only two in the vaccine group.

What’s more, in a global trial of nearly 44,000 people, the vaccine was found to be 66% effective.

Its effectiveness varied from country to country:

  • 72% in the United States
  • 66% in Latin America
  • 57% in South Africa

This variation could be attributed to the different strains spreading in different countries, which have different levels of transmissibility.

The goody news is that Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was 85% effective overall in stopping severe cases of the disease.

FDA will decide on Friday if the vaccine should be approved for emergency use.

Effective in Reducing Risk of Contracting Covid-19

The vaccine was also found to be effective in reducing one’s risk of contracting Covid-19, as well as preventing a positive result on a PCR test at least 14 days after vaccination.

This is because it takes time for the body to build immunity against a disease.

But not every vaccine recipient will develop a strong enough immunity, of course.

In Johnson & Johnson’s trial, only two vaccine recipients developed Covid-19 severe enough to need medical intervention two weeks after vaccination, compared to 14 in the placebo group.

After 28 days, no vaccine recipients developed Covid-19 severe enough to require medical intervention but seven in the placebo group did.

Side Effects

Only three vaccine recipients had severe side effects but this did not raise any concerns over its overall safety.

The most common side effects included:

  • injection site pain – 48.6%
  • headache  – 39%
  • fatigue – 38.2%
  • myalgia (muscle pain) – 33.2%
  • fever – 9%
  • high fever – 0.2%

FDA said one case of pericarditis, a heart disease, may have been caused by the vaccine.

However, cases of a rare disorder, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, were unlikely to be related to the inoculation.

Feature Image: vovidzha / Shutterstock.com

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Shawn Ambrose
Email: [email protected]