Government says Janssen’s Covid vaccine is now two doses

The Ministry of Health changed the guidance on the Covid vaccine manufactured by Janssen. The immunizing agent, which had been used in a single dose, will now be transferred to a regimen of two applications, as already happens with the injections by Pfizer, Astrazeneca and Coronavac.

The second dose should be applied two months after the first.

In addition, people 18 years of age or older who have taken this immunizer will also receive the booster dose after five months of the full primary course.

The announcement was made at a press conference at the Ministry of Health this Tuesday (16), when the folder informed that the booster dose against Covid was released for the entire adult population of the country.

According to the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, people who complete the Janssen two-dose primary vaccination course will be able to take a booster dose, preferably with another immunizing agent.

“In the beginning, the recommendation is that it should be a single dose. Today we know that this additional protection is needed. People who took the Janssen vaccine will take the second dose of the same immunizing agent. As we already have a quantity, it will not be an effort very big,” he said.

“Up ahead, it completed five months of the second dose, [a pessoa] will receive the second dose, preferably with a different vaccine,” he added.

After questioning when people can look for health centers, the extraordinary secretary of Covid-19 of the Ministry of Health, Rosana Leite de Melo, said that the Ministry of Health should release the vaccines from Friday ( 19) for states and municipalities.

“We ordinarily distribute two agendas [por semana]. This one from Janssen is from Friday if they are all released. They arrived yesterday and will be distributed with all the information”, he said.

Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, said a second dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, given about two months after the first, increased its effectiveness to 94% in the United States against moderate or severe forms of the disease.

Protection with a single dose of the vaccine, which is used in several countries, including Brazil, is 70%

​The drugmaker added that the second dose increased antibody levels four to six times. When given six months after the first, antibody levels increased 12-fold.

At this Tuesday’s press conference, Queiroga defended the increase in the booster dose as a measure to “avoid what has been happening in Europe.” Germany, for example, is considering returning to the home office regime, while the Netherlands became on Friday (12) the first country in Western Europe to resume stricter measures of social isolation because of Covid.

Brazil has 58.9% of the population with the first complete vaccination cycle. About 75.7% of the population received at least one dose. The data are from the consortium formed by the vehicles sheet, Uol, O Estado de S. Paulo, Extra, o Globo and G1.

According to the website Our World in Data, linked to the University of Oxford, in England, Brazil surpassed the United States in the percentage of vaccinated against Covid.

The information was shared on a social network by scientist Eric Topol, cardiologist, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, and professor of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute. According to him, Brazil joined 55 other countries that surpassed the American indexes.

VACCINATION OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

For the population under 18 years of age, in Brazil only Pfizer has authorization from Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to apply the injection against Covid in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.

Last Friday (12), the agency received an application for the use of this immunizing agent in children aged 5 to 11 years. The request must be analyzed within a period of up to 30 days.

The Butantan Institute, responsible in Brazil for the production of Coronavac, claims to have presented the necessary documents for the release of the immunizing agent for children, but the regulatory agency denies having received sufficient information for the authorization.