The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorization on Saturday, clearing the way for it to become the third COVID vaccine to be administered in the US starting on Tuesday.  Initial supplies to the US market, however, are likely to be limited for at least […] Continue reading ->
Johnson & Johnson is set to release its Phase 3 COVID-19 clinical trial results in two weeks and immediately file for emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – an announcement that is likely a harbinger of positive results.  This news on the development of the first one-shot COVID-19 vaccine, accompanied by […] Continue reading ->
 Illustration of the AdVac® adenovirus technology, being tested by  Johnson & Johnson, (Credit: J&J) Johnson & Johnson, the only pharma firm currently developing a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine candidate, has “paused” its Phase 3 clinical trial due to an unexplained illness in one of the participants. A press release issued on Monday confirmed reports that a […] Continue reading ->
More stable funding for WHO, but only incremental progress on reforms in global pandemic response are expected out of the upcoming World Health Assembly, where member states also will debate and discuss over two dozen other critical health issues that don’t always make the headlines.   The 75th World Health Assembly, WHO’s annual meeting of member […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – A new partnership between African scientists and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J), aimed at finding solutions to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), was launched in South Africa on Monday. The J&J Satellite Center for Global Health Discovery, housed at the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Center, will […] Continue reading ->
A new South African study shows that a second Johnson & Johnson dose, administered 6-9 months after the initial single-dose vaccine provided 84% protection against hospitalization from the Omicron SARS-CoV2 variant – results that even outperformed those of an earlier South African study looking at effectiveness of the two-dose Pfizer regime in the face of […] Continue reading ->
In the coming months, 600 million doses of single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines, manufactured in Hyderabad, are likely to be exported to Europe or the United States, at a time when India grapples with vaccinating its own citizens. Civil-society organisations are concerned that millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may end up in the […] Continue reading ->
After months of frustrated efforts to unlock global vaccine supplies for the African continent, WHO and African Union leaders are now pinning their hopes on US President Joe Biden’s reported plan to call heads of state to a “Global Pandemic Summit” on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, which opened today, as a […] Continue reading ->
Eleven African countries will this weekend start receiving their portion of the first batch of 400 million COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson and Johnson (J&J), the Africa CDC announced on Thursday. Recipients include Togo, Lesotho, Ghana, Tunisia, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Mauritius, and they are part of pool purchasing facilitated by the African […] Continue reading ->
Before the G7 leaders sat down on Friday afternoon in Cornwall to discuss how to “build back better” a world devastated by COVID-19, UK Prime Minister and summit host Boris Johnson challenged the Group to accept a target of providing one billion doses to developing countries. But the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a network of over […] Continue reading ->