Johnson & Johnson's Single-Dose COVID-19 Vaccine Approved For Use In European Union

The European Union (EU) has approved the use of the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by the United States (US) based pharmaceutical major Johnson & Johnson (J&J), reports Economic Times.

This makes J&J's vaccine the fourth jab to have been approved for administration in the 27 nations which are part of the EU. The other approved vaccines include those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-Oxford.

European Medicines Agency (EMA), the EU drug regulator, noted that the clinical trials involving volunteers in the United States, South Africa and South American countries found the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 67 per cent effective at preventing people from getting COVID-19.

EMA also observed that the side effects were observed to be "usually mild or moderate" which cleared within a couple of days, including pain at the injection site, headache, tiredness, muscle pain and nausea.