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“This is the earliest and most optimistic term,” Gytis Andrulionis, head of the State Control of Medicines (IEC), said during a teleconference on Friday, adding that the first shipments “will be more symbolic amounts.”
Lithuania buys 700 thousand. Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Dosage. The company promises to deliver all this amount before the end of the year, but, as G. Anddrulionis points out, the vaccine was approved a little later than planned, so this deadline can be extended.
“This vaccine is unique because it can store 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. This is the first vaccine to be vaccinated with a single dose.
“This adenovirus vaccine has been tested in a large number of clinical trials,” Anddrulionis said of the new vaccine.
What side effects do you expect?
Simona Stankevičiūtė, head of the IWT Health Technology Assessment Division, explained that the vaccine is closer to the AstraZeneca vaccine than other COVID-19 vaccines already approved in Lithuania and assured that the vaccine itself cannot cause the disease.
“I want to emphasize that the adenovirus vector in the vaccine must be understood as a vector, a spacer that contains the genetic information of the needle protein virus. That adenovirus that normally causes colds and other cold symptoms cannot actually cause illness after vaccination because it is genetically modified.
Of course, the vaccine cannot cause a coronavirus infection either because it does not contain all the virus necessary for infection to occur. It contains only one message about the needle protein, ”taught S. Stankevičiūtė.
Rugilė Pilvinienė, Senior Advisor, Poisoning and Pharmacovigilance Information Unit, IARC, said the side effects of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were very similar to those of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
According to her, the vaccinated person may experience injection sites, headaches, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea.
The vaccine package insert also mentions a possible severe anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine. “Its frequency has been assessed as unknown,” said R. Pilvinienė.
According to her, protection after vaccination should be established 14 days after vaccination. “As with all vaccines, the useful life of this protection is not yet known,” explained the specialist.
The vaccine is currently known to provide protection for at least 3 months, but participants in its clinical trials will be monitored for 2 years and only these observations will show exactly how long the protection provided by the vaccine lasts.
According to S. Stankevičiūtė, in a few months or half a year more will be known about the term of protection.
What does the vaccine protect against?
The effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is reported to be 66.4 percent. Still, experts say the vaccine is effective enough.
S. Stankevičiūtė noted that a fifth of the participants in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine clinical trials were from the Republic of South Africa (PAR), where the most contagious strain of COVID-19 has a high prevalence.
“We know that the effectiveness of the vaccine was also sufficient there,” said the specialist, assuring him that the vaccine was more effective than any other risk.
R. Pilvinienė explained that no vaccine should be expected to be 100%. effectiveness. He recalled that the effectiveness of the flu vaccine was much lower (about 40%) than that of any COVID-19 vaccine approved in Europe.
“We need to understand that some people and vaccinated can get sick. But the essence of all vaccines is to achieve the goal after vaccination, so that a person gets a mild form even if they get sick. No vaccine protects against infection. Protects against the serious consequences of the disease ”, emphasized R. Pilvinienė.
The European Union pharmacovigilance authority on Thursday approved Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, the fourth of its kind to be conditionally licensed for distribution in the 27-nation bloc.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in late February. Health experts hope that the single-dose vaccine will speed up the COVID-19 vaccination process around the world, especially given the new strains of the virus that have been spreading in recent months.
Lithuania buys coronavirus vaccines together with other European Union countries from six companies: Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Sanofi and GSK, BioNTech and Pfizer and CureVac.
