EU approves Johnson & Johnson single dose Covid-19 vaccine

Brussels, Mar 11 (efe-epa).- The European Commission on Thursday authorized the use of the single-shot Covid-19 vaccine from Janssen, the European affiliate of American company Johnson & Johnson.

The decision followed a recommendation from the European Medicines Agency.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: “More safe and effective vaccines are coming to the market. We have just authorised the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in the EU.

“With the number of doses we ordered, we could vaccinate up to 200 million people in the EU.”

It is the fourth vaccine to gain conditional market authorization in the bloc after Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna but the first that is administered in a single dose.

The EMA recommended the Janssen jab, which has an efficacy of 67%, for everyone over 18.

“With this latest positive opinion, authorities across the European Union will have another option to combat the pandemic and protect the lives and health of their citizens,” Emer Cooke, EMA’s Executive Director, said in a statement. “This is the first vaccine which can be used as a single dose.”

The scientific evaluation of the Janssen vaccine was based on findings in clinical trials from the United States, South Africa and Latin America.

Its efficacy rate is substantially lower than that offered by the double-dose Pfizer and Moderna jabs, which are both over 90%, but is closer to AstraZeneca, which prevents roughly 70% of symptomatic Covid-19 cases.

The EMA said side effects associated with the Janssen vaccine were moderate or mild and usually disappeared within days.