The United States granted, Saturday, February 28, an emergency authorization for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
This single-dose vaccine, which can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, joins those of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna in the massive vaccination campaign in the United States, where the pandemic has claimed more than 500,000 lives.
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.
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.
Don't "let your guard down"
This is great news for all Americans, and an encouraging step in our efforts to end the crisis, "Joe Biden said in a statement." But we cannot let our guard down or take for granted that victory is inevitable, ”he added.
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.
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).
With AFP
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