An advisory panel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Sunday to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine for widespread use, a final release for the injection after U.S. regulators authorized it on Saturday.
State and local public health officials will use the guidelines of the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC when administering the first 4 million doses. The federal government, through its distribution partner, McKesson Corp., plans to send the first doses on Sunday night or Monday morning.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices played an important role in guiding states on how to allocate scarce doses, although states themselves have the final say on how to distribute injections.
One of the panelists said during a presentation on Sunday that there are still no studies comparing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine directly with the other approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc., but that all vaccines have been highly effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths .
The panelist also said that there was insufficient data to know whether the safety or efficacy of the vaccines could be compromised by pre-existing conditions that weaken a person’s immune system.
The Johnson & Johnson injection will be the only one-dose coronavirus vaccine available in the United States. It is also the easiest to ship and store, as it can be kept in the refrigerator instead of the freezer.
Johnson & Johnson expects to ship 100 million doses by mid-year, enough to vaccinate nearly a third of Americans.