Johnson and Johnson's Single-Dose COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Elicits Strong Immune Response In Phase 1 And 2 Trials

In a positive development in the global effort to end the menace of COVID-19 pandemic, United States (US) based pharmaceutical major Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has claimed that single dose of its COVID-19 vaccine has been found to induce the required strong immune response in the trial participants, reports Economic Times.

The results are based on the Phase-I and Phase-II clinical trials of the vaccine developed by J&J, which also show that the vaccine was generally well-tolerated across all study participants.

In a peer-reviewed study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, J&J said that the vaccine generated required antibodies in the trial participants by day 29 in 90 per cent of the cases, and in 100 per cent of the participants aged 18-55 on day 57.

The company now plans to announce the phase-3 trial data for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in late January.

If the single-dose vaccine is proven to be safe and effective, the company expects to apply for an emergency use authorisation (EUA) with the US' Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If it receives the FDA nod, the vaccine would become the first in the world to offer single-dose protection against COVID-19.

Presently, all the other vaccines which are being used worldwide require a second dosage to be administered after 28 days.