Daily US Times: The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Janssen is 66% effective, the company has said.
An international trial looked at giving just one dose of the vaccine, which makes the vaccine significantly easier to roll out than those requiring two.
The United Kingdom has already pre-ordered 30m doses.
The news comes shortly after Novavax announced their vaccine was 89% effective. Both of the vaccines need to be reviewed by regulators before they can be used.
Janssen, a pharmaceutical company in Belgium owned by Johnson & Johnson, is also investigating whether giving two doses will give either stronger or longer-lasting protection.
Janssen said its initial findings showed one dose prevented 85% of severe cases.
However part of the trial in South Africa, where a new variant of the virus is spreading, found it was just 57% effective.
The chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, Dr Paul Stoffels, said that would “potentially protect hundreds of millions of people from serious and fatal outcomes of
Johnson & Johnson is aiming to make one billion doses this year.
The Janssen vaccine uses a common cold virus that has been engineered to make it harmless.
The vaccine then safely carries part of the coronavirus’s genetic code into the body. This is enough for the body to recognise the threat and then learn to fight Covid-19.
This trains the immune system of human body to fight coronavirus when it encounters the virus for real.
This is similar to the approach used by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
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