J&J Booster Reduces Omicron Hospitalization – African Research Reuters

Author: Wendell Roelf

SOURCE (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE 🙂 Inc.’s single-dose COVID-19 booster dose was 84% ​​effective in preventing the spread of Omicron variants as they spread to South African health care workers, researchers said on Thursday. .

The real-world study, which was not reviewed by peers, was based on the second dose of the J&J vaccine given to 69,092 employees between November 15 and December 20.

An initial inoculation course has been shown to reduce Omicron’s protection against infection, which is spreading rapidly in many countries after being identified in southern Africa and Hong Kong in late November.

However, several studies have suggested that a booster dose provides great protection against serious diseases of the variant.

Research in South Africa showed that the effectiveness of the J&J vaccine in preventing hospitalization rose from 63% to 14% 14 days later after a booster. Efficiency reached 85% in one or two months.

“It reassures us that COVID-19 vaccines remain effective for the purpose for which they were designed, which is to protect people from serious illness and death,” said Linda-Gail Bekker, one of the researchers in the study.

“This is further evidence that we have not lost that influence even in the face of a highly mutated variant.”

Bekker said the jury was “still out” about further promotions of the J&J plan.

“What we’re showing is that two doses restore full protection, and I don’t think we can extrapolate from this that we’ll need a third or fourth boost.”

The researchers said their analysis had a number of limitations, including short follow-up times, an average of eight days for health workers who had received a boost in the previous 13 days, or 32 days for those promoted 1-2 months earlier, and could be wrong. the overall effectiveness of the vaccine.

Another South African-based study this month showed that a first round of inoculation of two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine was less effective in keeping people infected with the virus out of hospital in South Africa since the Omicron variant was created.