Coronavirus Update: Johnson & Johnson Plans To Test Its Covid-19 Vaccine In Ages 12-18 Soon

The company further plans to test the vaccine on younger children afterward, depending on safety and other factors.

(Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: In the race of developing Coronavirus vaccine Medical device company Johnson & Johnson on Friday said that the firm plans to test its experimental coronavirus vaccine on people aged between 12 and 18 years as soon as possible. “We plan to go into children as soon as we possibly can, but very carefully in terms of safety,” Dr Jerry Sadoff, a vaccine research scientist at the company’s Janssen unit, said during a virtual meeting of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In a statement, the company said it was holding discussions with partners and regulators testing the vaccine on the 12-18 age group. “The company plans to test the vaccine on younger children afterwards, depending on safety and other factors”, Sadoff added. The US Food and Drug Administration said that it was important to test the Covid-19 vaccine candidates on children. While some doctors had raised concerns that the vaccines could trigger Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, a rare and life-threatening condition, in some children. In the vaccine development, Johnson & Johnson uses a cold virus to deliver coronavirus genetic material to get an immune response. The vaccine platform, named AdVac, was approved in Europe earlier this year for use against Ebola and was performed on more than a lakh people, including infants, children and pregnant women. ALSO REA | Covid-19: Rise In Cases In Delhi A Cause For Concern, Is It Going To Be A Hotspot Again? Dr Paul Spearman, director of the infectious disease’s division of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital emphasized on the safety of the vaccine “Most of the toxicities are going to come from the platform and not from putting a different insert into the platform,” Dr Spearman said, adding that replacing the Ebola genetic material with that of the novel coronavirus was not likely to result in any major problems. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has already begun testing its vaccine on children as young as 12 years. Phase 3 clinical trials of Johnson & Johnson AdVac, began in late September with 60000 adult volunteers. It, however, had to pause the advanced clinical trial because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers, the company said on October 12. Until now, the coronavirus has infected more than 45.5 million people and killed 11,87,550. Over 30.6 million people have recovered from the infection.