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UK approves single shot Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine

London - 20 million doses are expected to be delivered later this year

Published: Fri 28 May 2021, 4:08 PM

Updated: Fri 28 May 2021, 4:18 PM

  • By
  • Prasun Sonwalkar

Britain medicines regulator on Friday (May 28) approved the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine that is assessed to be 85 per cent effective in stopping severe illness from Covid-19 in trials, adding another vaccine to efforts to deal with the virus.

The United Kingdom (UK) has ordered 20 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is expected to be delivered later in the year.

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British Health secretary Matt Hancock, welcomed the news, saying: “This is a further boost to the UK’s hugely successful vaccination programme, which has already saved over 13,000 lives, and means that we now have four safe and effective vaccines approved to help protect people from this awful virus”.

He added: “As Johnson & Johnson is a single-dose vaccine, it will play an important role in the months to come as we redouble our efforts to encourage everyone to get their jabs and potentially begin a booster programme later this year.”

Altogether, 62,658,639 people in the UK had received Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines: 38,614,683 and 24,043,956 receiving the first and the second dose, respectively, till Thursday (May 27) evening.

Reuters

Reuters



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