In a statement, Johnson and Johnson said the data released on Friday also includes tentative efficacy and safety results from clinical trials.
In December 2020, the company entered into an agreement in principle with the GAVI Vaccine Association to vaccinate low and middle-income countries through the WHO’s COVAX program. Johnson and Johnson and GAVI are hoping to secure a purchase agreement in the near future that will allow them to deliver up to 500 million doses of Jannsen-made vaccine to COVAX in 2022.
Johnson and Johnson said in late January that his potential coronavirus vaccine would have 85 percent efficacy.
On February 15, the World Health Organization approved a vaccine developed for emergency use by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, manufactured in South Korea and India. Before that, a vaccine called Comirnaty from the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German biotechnology company BionTech was added to the list of vaccines approved by the United Nations Health Organization.
According to the World Health Organization, the safety and effectiveness of vaccines are checked under the approval process, and COVAX will only be able to ship the vaccine to countries around the world once the procedure is complete. Inclusion on the WHO list could speed up country-specific licensing procedures for importing and using the vaccine.
Cover photo: Kyodo News via Getty Images