The American pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson claims that their single-dose vaccine is effective against the Delta variant.
Detected a few months ago now in India, the Delta variant is a source of concern in Europe. WHO also warned on Thursday that a new wave was ready to emerge on the continent. Faced with the rise of the Delta variant and the predominance of the latter, Portugal decided this Friday, July 2 to re-establish a curfew in 45 municipalities. “We note that last week the situation has deteriorated again “, lamented the Minister of the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, during a press conference, adding that “the conditions are not met to say that the pandemic is under control “.
Faced with this threat, governments are betting everything on anti-Covid vaccines. Jenssen, the single-dose serum from the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical group, is believed to be reliable against the Delta variant.
Two studies to ensure it
“We believe that our vaccine offers lasting protection against Covid-19 and enables neutralization of the Delta variant”, said Paul Stoffels, Scientific Director of Johnson & Johnson quoted in a press release released this Thursday, July 1. According to a first study, carried out initially by the American pharmaceutical group, on a small sample of eight people vaccinated with Jenssen, the antibodies inoculated by the latter and the cells of the immune system destroyed the Delta variant.
A second study, this time involving 20 vaccinated patients from Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, brought the same conclusions. The data of these studies were granted to the platform of “Preprints” BioRxiv, where scientists can communicate their research before a possible publication in a scientific journal. “The data over the eight months studied so far shows that the single-dose vaccine developed by the laboratory produces a strong neutralizing antibody response that does not diminish, we even observe an improvement over time”, said Mathai Mammen, Head of Research and Development at Johnson & Johnson.
