NEW ORLEANS — Another COVID vaccine could soon be out on the market.
Doctors still need to go through the clinical trial results before it's approved, but local doctors say that could happen in the next couple of weeks.
And that could cut down on your wait time to get the shot in your arm.
In mid-September a small place in Metairie, was the first research center in the entire country, to open the Johnson and Johnson study for a coronavirus vaccine. Clinical Trials Management signed up nearly 500 study participants.
It became one of the top 10 places in the country to enroll volunteers.
“Many, many of them say they want to do so, that they can contribute to the solution, to be a part of history, to be a part of believing that we are very close to a vaccine that will let us all get out of these masks,” Cindy Kessler, CEO of Clinical Trials Management, said in November.
In three months, by mid-December, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine study ended. Around 45,000 people signed up worldwide. Now local doctors have hopeful news.
“We're hoping that those results will become available at the end of January already, and so that vaccine may get approval in the United States sometime in the next four weeks, is what we're hoping,” said Dr. Patrick Delafontaine, the Executive Dean of the Tulane University School of Medicine.
Tulane was another test site, enrolling 240 local people in the study. Doctors say if this version of a coronavirus vaccine is proven to work, it could make a big difference in getting the shots in our arms faster.
“It may be with the vaccines that are coming along, that that may change the calculus quite dramatically. The AstraZeneca and the Johnson and Johnson have far less problematic delivery characteristics, because of storage and everything, and they're also far less expensive,” explained Tulane Epidemiologist, Dr. Susan Hassig.
So, it is less expensive, doesn't need negative 94-degree storage, and only one dose is required.
Preliminary results published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, show it is safe while producing a promising immune response in young and elderly volunteers.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is different from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on the market. This one uses a cold virus to deliver information to the immune system. The cold virus is harmless and can not make you sick or multiply in your body.
