The American company Johnson & Johnson has suspended trials of a coronavirus vaccine due to an unexplained illness of a research participant. The corresponding statement is posted on the corporation's website.
The pharmaceutical giant will temporarily waive further dose provisioning in all clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate, including the third phase of the global trial.
The patient's condition is currently being studied by the Independent Data and Subject Safety Monitoring Committee (DSMB) in conjunction with medical professionals. Additional information on the volunteer's health will be published at a later date.
Johnson & Johnson began its third phase of vaccine trials on September 23rd. The drug elicited a sustained immune response during the first phase and the first phase of the second phase of clinical trials. The third phase will involve up to 60,000 volunteers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, Chile and South Africa, and the trials will examine the safety and efficacy of a single dose of the vaccine versus a placebo to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The company expects the first batch of the vaccine to be available in early 2021.
In addition to Johnson & Johnson, the vaccine is being developed in the United States by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca together with scientists from the University of Oxford (UK), the American biotechnology company Moderna, as well as Merck and Pfizer.
As of October 13, there are more than 37.7 million people infected with coronavirus in the world, of which more than 1.07 million have died, another 26.1 million have recovered. Most of the infected are registered in the USA, India, Brazil, Russia and Colombia.
