Ministry of Health to give up the 2nd dose of Janssen in the primary regimen

The Ministry of Health is expected to back down on the decision to apply a second dose of Janssen’s vaccine as part of the primary schedule. The folder should adopt only the booster dose for those who took the product against Covid.

Janssen’s vaccine is the only one approved by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) in a single dose. Vaccines from Pfizer, Coronavac and AstraZeneca require two doses for the full primary course.

According to members of the folder heard by the report, the recommendation will be that this booster dose be applied from two to five months after the single dose.

The possibility of a third dose after the application of the two doses will still be analyzed. That’s because there are still ongoing studies about the need or not of this extra application.

In a press conference on Tuesday (16), the Ministry of Health had announced, however, that the second dose of Janssen should be applied two months after the first in the adult population.

The booster dose, as stated on Tuesday, should be used after five months of the complete primary regimen. The recommendation was that it be done with a different immunizer, preferably that from Pfizer.

“In the beginning, the recommendation is that it should be a single dose. Today we know that this additional protection is needed. Those who took the Janssen vaccine will take the second dose of the same immunizing agent. And as we have a quantity, it won’t be a great effort big,” said the minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, at the time.

“The sequence is: five months after the second dose, you will receive a booster dose, preferably with a different, heterologous vaccine […] Janssen also requires two doses for the primary vaccination. Scientific evidence is being built over time,” he continued.

The folder was contacted to comment on the retreat, but did not respond to questions until the publication of the text.

The announcement of the application of the second dose and the booster dose of the Janssen vaccine for Covid-19, made on the 16th, took health managers, Anvisa and even the laboratory producing the vaccine by surprise.

Two days later, Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) requested data from the Ministry of Health on the decision to start applying the Janssen vaccine in two doses in the primary schedule.

At the time, the regulatory agency also asked for an explanation about the decision to release the booster dose of Covid-19 vaccination to all adults.

For Anvisa, the Ministry of Health responded that the Janssen vaccine booster should be applied with the same immunizing agent.

“As envisioned, the strategy for booster doses is preferably from the messenger RNA platform or, alternatively, the viral vector vaccine. Thus, we recommend the homologous scheme for the immunizers from Pfizer and Janssen and the heterologous scheme for the others, guidance already consolidated in the Notes Previous techniques that dealt with the booster dose for the population over 60 and health workers”, shows the office of the folder to which the sheet had access.

In an order sent to Anvisa last Saturday (20), Janssen requested the maintenance of the basic single-dose cycle and the application of the same product in the reinforcement.