Johnson & Johnson has disclosed results from tests so far of its COVID-19 vaccine. Though the overall effectiveness of the vaccine was only 66 percent, inoculations did show better numbers in preventing severe cases.
One advantage of the company’s vaccine is that it requires only a single dose. “In a pandemic, if you can, with a single-dose vaccine, very quickly eliminate the severe consequences of death, hospitalization, and severe disease, that’s what’s important for society,” said Paul Stoels, Johnson & Johnson’s lead scientist.
The New Jersey medical company’s vaccine was found to be 85 percent effective in preventing severe COVID cases leading to hospitalization or death, though there was some variance in different populations. The global study included 44,325 participants, including 468 who developed symptomatic cases.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, unlike the ones from Pfizer and Moderna, does not utilize an mRNA method to create an immune response in the human body. But its own approach, based on using a double-stranded DNA, is also a previously untried technology. Researchers added a gene for the coronavirus spike protein to an Adenovirus. Adenoviruses commonly cause colds or flu-like symptoms. The modified adenovirus enters cells but can’t replicate inside them or cause illness, according to scientists. Their presence stimulates an immune response.
