The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Saturday (Feb. 27), making it the third shot cleared for use in the country.
“The authorization of this vaccine expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19, to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives in the United States,” Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement.
An FDA analysis showed that the single-shot vaccine had a 72% overall efficacy rate in the U.S. and 64% in South Africa, where a highly-transmissible coronavirus variant is causing most new cases, The New York Times reported. The efficacy rate in South Africa is slightly higher than the company had estimated in a recent report, up by seven percentage points.
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