India is in talks with the US pharma giant Johnson and Johnson for their single-dose Covid-19 vaccine. And the good news is that the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant. That’s what the company claims in its latest report. What’s more, the vaccine is effective against the virus even eight months after inoculation. In the United States, as many as 11 million people have received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
The company claims that its adenoviurs vaccine made to counter the original SARS-CoV-2 virus shows an insignificant decline in its potency against the Delta variant. In fact, its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine elicited a higher level of antibody activity against the Delta variant as compared to the Beta (B.1.351) variant, first identified in South Africa.
In its study, the pharma company has also found that antibodies generated by the vaccine gain strength over a long period of time.
‘Janssen single-dose vaccine protects against multiple variants’
“We believe that our vaccine offers durable protection against COVID-19 and elicits neutralizing activity against the Delta variant. This adds to the robust body of clinical data supporting our single-shot vaccine’s ability to protect against multiple variants of concern,” said Paul Stoffels, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson
While, Mathai Mammen, the Global Head of Janssen Research & Development said that the current data for the eight months studied so far show that the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine generates a strong neutralizing antibody response that does not wane; rather, it observes an improvement over time in addition with a persistent and robust cellular immune response.
India in talks with Johnson & Johnson for COVID vaccine
The report indeed has instilled hope into the people dispelling their misbelief and anxiousness around the growing ‘threat’ of the Delta variant, which means that those who are inoculated should not worry over their protection against the new mutant. The Delta variant, first identified in India, is more contagious than the other mutants of coronavirus and has spread globally setting off fresh restrictions in several countries.
The announcement has come as a relief for those who received the J&J vaccine as the other US vaccine makers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, had already declared that their jabs are effective on all existing variants of the COVID-19 virus. In India, both SII and Bharat Biotech, have claimed that their vaccines are safe against the Delta variant.
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