it is official the johnson johnson
vaccine is now one of
three coveted vaccines that have
officially been granted emergency use
authorization
by the united states fda joining the
rights of moderna
and pfizer results of the phase 3
clinical trials led by janssen
a subsidiary of johnson and johnson show
the vaccine to be 66
effective overall at preventing moderate
and severe disease
while not as high as moderna's and
pfizer's 94 and 95
overall efficacy this vaccine was found
to be 85
effective against severe disease
regardless of the region
or what variant it is exposed to what's
more it requires a single dose to work
and doesn't have specialized
freezers two attributes which could be
massive game changers for expanding
access
across the globe because wow has
distributing covert vaccines prove
tricky
mass vaccination is never easy but this
pandemic has presented some unique
challenges
for one experts have suggested that
anywhere between 50 and 85 percent of
the population
must be vaccinated to achieve herd
immunity which
is a pretty big range and it seems to be
changing all the time
then there's the competing pressure of
making enough vaccines to go around
and that's not even mentioning the
amount of sheer effort and
energy needed to transport the vaccines
from the lab
to the public the international air
transport association
figured that with a single dose of
vaccine given to 8 billion people
they would need 8 000 747s to transport
it around the world
but actually all the vaccines except for
johnson johnson are two doses
that means everything from development
to distribution to storage
can be cut in half a logistical godsend
not only that but the jnj vaccine is
more durable than many of its
counterparts
particularly those developed by moderna
and pfizer
unlike mrna-based vaccines which are
incredibly fragile and require cold
storage to protect from damage
the jj vaccine doesn't require the same
ultra-cold storage to stay intact
in fact it can keep in a regular
refrigerator for up to three months
so how exactly did jay and jay bring
this all together
well it all has to do with how its
vaccine is formulated
similar to the university of oxford's
astrazeneca vaccine in china's cansino
vaccine
it uses a modified adenovirus as its
vector specifically
add 26. that adenovirus is going to
induce
certain kinds of protective responses
that will allow this little piece of
kova that we stuck into it
to have a much greater effect once the
little piece of covet is inside the
cell's nucleus
its gene for creating a spike protein is
added to the dna
of add26 dna's double helix structure is
more robust than single stranded rna
the cell can then read those
instructions to make copies of the
viruses spike protein
these copies trigger the body's immune
response helping it to become familiar
with the virus and develop a plan of
attack
should the two ever meet again
adenoviruses are usually harmless to
healthy people
aside from maybe causing a runny nose
and therefore low risk vectors for
delivering dna
into our body's cells you can grow
adenovirus
to very very high levels in
manufacturing and that allows you to
make a lot of vaccine very cheaply and
at high quality
it has the advantage of being scalable
you can
very rapidly expand and make hundreds of
millions of doses very quickly
but there's a catch or two
our bodies can develop immunity to
adenoviral vectors just like they would
to most
real viral infections this means that
unlike other vaccines which rely
on additional shots to boost immunity a
second dose of the j j vaccine could
cause the body to start
attacking the vaccine itself booster
shots can be incredibly useful for
providing further protection after
initial vaccination
since the body can lose its ability to
fight off the disease over time
they also hold the potential to bring
covert mutations under control
by priming the body's system to look out
for new viral variants
j is currently running a trial with 30
000 volunteers to see how the body might
react to a second shot
and if it works to raise their immunity
results aren't expected to be released
until the years end the body's immunity
to adenoviruses may also cause a wrinkle
for the vaccine's efficacy
while most people in the u.s and europe
haven't been exposed to ad 26
and therefore don't have neutralizing
antibodies research has found that
people living in places like thailand
brazil
and sub-saharan africa have higher rates
of pre-existing immunity
which brings us to the results from j
j's phase 3
trial overall the vaccine is pretty
effective at preventing moderate
and severe illness about 66 in the u.s
it's even higher but in latin america
and south africa
the vaccine didn't perform as well still
the jnj vaccine
remains 85 effective at preventing
severe disease
and 100 effective at preventing
hospitalizations
and death encouraged by this data south
africa became the first country to
administer the jnj vaccine in february
2021
and in late february the u.s food and
drug administration
approved it for emergency use in light
of this decision
johnson johnson has announced plans to
deliver 100 million doses to the u.s
during the first half of 2021
and up to a billion by the end of the
year
which means that we could get a billion
people protected
with this vaccine alone distribution is
expected to start
immediately want to learn more about
this pandemic and how science is working
to tackle it
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as always thanks so much for watching
stay safe
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