WHO Grants Emergency Use Listing to J&J’s COVID-19 Vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued an Emergency Use Listing on Friday for Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine ― a step that clears the way for the COVAX global vaccine-sharing program to begin distributing the shot to poorer countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

J&J said it expects to provide up to 500 million doses of its vaccine to COVAX through 2022, under an agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which operates COVAX along with the WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (DID, Feb. 22).

The J&J vaccine, which received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA in late February and conditional marketing authorization from the EU last week (DID, March 12), has demonstrated 85 percent efficacy against severe COVID-19 and 66 percent efficacy against moderate-to-severe forms of the disease, according to data from more than 44,000 participants in a global phase 3 study (DID, March 1).

The WHO previously issued emergency listings for the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccines (DID, Feb. 17). — Jason Scott