Good vaccine news has been pouring in today — this afternoon it was the turn of the Janssen vaccine, made by US company Johnson & Johnson. An international trial, in which the vaccine was tested against various strains of the virus, has found the jab to have 66 per cent overall efficacy.
This is a lower efficacy rate than the trial conducted in the United States — which found the jab to be 72 per cent effective. But the international trial was designed to test the vaccine against more aggressive strains of the virus in a bid to answer questions about the new mutations. The trail set up sites in ‘red list’ areas, including Brazil and South Africa, finding that (after 28 days) the vaccine was 66 per cent effective in Latin America and 57 per cent effective in South Africa.
It is a single-dose vaccine, which requires no follow-up with patients
But perhaps the biggest news to come out of the trial is how effective the vaccine is when it comes to the most important metrics: eliminating hospitalisations and deaths from the virus.
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