Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Effective Against Delta Variant

The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variety eight months after vaccination, the pharmaceutical company said.

According to the company, the vaccine's potency against the variation was slightly lower than it was against the original virus. However, the vaccine proved more effective against the Delta version than the Beta form, initially discovered in South Africa. This pattern has also been observed with mRNA vaccines.

The strength of antibodies produced by the vaccine increases with time, according to the researchers.

(Photo: PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)
Empty vials that contained a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus lie on a table as South Africa proceeds with its inoculation campaign at the Klerksdorp Hospital on February 18, 2021.

The findings were announced in a press release posted on Johnson & Johnson's website. The company stated the studies were submitted for online publication on Thursday. One of the research was accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Both studies are tiny, and the researchers claimed they revealed the results ahead of schedule due to public interest.

"The coverage of the variants is going to be better than what people anticipated," Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told the New York Times. "There was a lot of misinformation that was spreading, so we decided that we needed to get this into the public domain right away," Dr. Barouch added.

Even those who have been inoculated are concerned about their safety due to the heated debate around Delta's threat. The variety, initially discovered in India, is far more transmissible than previous strains of the virus. Its global spread has prompted new health regulations in countries ranging from Ireland to Malaysia

Johnson & Johnson Also Provides Better Protection vs. Severe Sickness, Hospitalization

Meanwhile, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has released data indicating that the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccination provides significant protection against severe sickness and hospitalization.

After being infected with Covid-19, 94% of healthcare professionals inoculated as part of the Sisonke Phase 3b trial with the J&J vaccine showed minor symptoms.

More than 479,000 healthcare professionals were vaccinated against Covid-19 with the J&J vaccine as part of the Sisonke implementation study.

The vaccine provided significant protection to healthcare workers with breakthrough infections, according to data from the SAMRC and Sisonke.

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COVID-19 positive cases that emerge 28 days after vaccination are considered breakthrough infections.

Daily links to national COVID-19 registries of laboratory and hospitalization data and through reports to the Sisonke desk" are how the SAMRC keeps track of breakthrough infections.

The Sisonke team subsequently contacts the healthcare worker to determine the infection's severity.

"Consistently, we are finding that 94% of breakthrough infections are mild, 4% are moderate, and only 2% severe," the SAMRC said per News24.

According to the SAMRC, antibody investigations conducted in the United States revealed that immune responses elicited by the J&J vaccine matured over time and covered variants of concern, such as the beta and delta versions.

The delta variation dominates the current third wave in South Africa.

"The single-dose vaccine, designed for emergency use, is safe and easy to use. We have mounting data to suggest that immunity increases over time and that it retains its efficacy against important variants such as beta and delta," Professor Glenda Gray, co-principal investigator of the Sisonke protocol, said in the same News24 report.