US President Joe Biden on Saturday welcomed the approval in the United States of a third vaccine against Covid-19, that of Johnson & Johnson, but called not to "lower our guard" against the pandemic which has made more of 500,000 deaths in the country.

The United States on Saturday granted an emergency authorization for Johnson & Johnson's vaccine against Covid-19, a news hailed by President Joe Biden who, however, called not to “lower our guard” in the face of the epidemic.

This single-dose vaccine, which can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, joins those of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna in the huge vaccination campaign in the United States, where the pandemic has killed more than 500,000.

After studying in detail the data of clinical trials, conducted on more than 43,000 people, a committee of experts had recommended Friday the marketing of the vaccine of the American company.

"Great news"

At least three million doses of the product are ready for distribution as early as next week, according to the US government.

Johnson & Johnson has pledged to ship 100 million doses to the United States by the end of June.

"This is great news for all Americans, and an encouraging step in our efforts to end the crisis," Biden said in a statement.

"But we cannot let our guard down or take it for granted that victory is inevitable," he added.

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With 600 million doses ordered in total from Pfizer and Moderna, the United States will have, by the end of July, enough vaccine to immunize almost the entire population.

The addition of those from Johnson & Johnson could further accelerate the vaccination campaign.

Vaccine already present in South Africa

South Africa, the country most affected by the virus in Africa, received a second delivery of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Saturday as it works to speed up its immunization campaign.

Some 80,000 vaccines arrived from Brussels by plane, according to local media.

According to the ministry, more than 63,600 public and private sector health workers have been vaccinated since the launch of the national vaccination campaign 11 days ago.

The pandemic has killed more than 2.5 million people worldwide since December 2019, according to a report established by AFP on Saturday.

More than 113,374,410 cases of infection have been diagnosed.

The United States is the most bereaved country with 510,467 dead, ahead of Brazil (252,835), Mexico (184,474), India (156,938) and the United Kingdom (122,415).