India approves Johnson's single-dose covid vaccine: Watch out for any side-effects |

Those getting vaccinated need to be briefed about the side-effects, and the remedies, as many drugs and symptomatic therapies are contraindicated in the management of post-vaccination side-effects. Johnson's vaccine like AstraZeneca had
produced blood clots in a few cases. These CVST patients also developed thrombocytopenia, which has an inverse relation to CVST. How to handle the complex issues? The US had paused Janssen but later resumed as the benefits of vaccination outweighed the AEFIs. |
NEW DELHI, Aug 9: The American pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson's covid
vaccine, Janssen, has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for immunisation
in India. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has announced.
"India expands its vaccine basket! Johnson and Johnson's single-dose COVID-19
vaccine is given approval for Emergency Use in India. Now India has 5 EUA vaccines.
This will further boost our nation's collective fight against covid," he tweeted
on Saturday.
The single-dose vaccine will be distributed in India by vaccine maker Biological
E Limited which has an agreement with Johnson & Johnson. However, the price
or the time when the vaccine will be made available is not yet known. The pharma
got India's approval just a day after it applied for Emergency Use Authorisation
(EUA).
Janssen is the fifth covid vaccine to receive EUA in India, the others being
Serum Institute of India's Covishield (Oxford- AstraZeneca), Bharat Biotech's
indigenous Covaxin, Russia's Sputnik V and US' Moderna. India, with a population
of over 130 crore, has so far administered 50 crore doses of covid vaccine,
either Covishield or Covaxin.
In the home country US, Johnson's is one of the three vaccines being used currently,
the other two being Pfizer and Moderna. The advantage Johnson's has is that
it is a one-dose vaccine while all the other 20 odd vaccines developed in the
world across against covid are two-dose to be taken with a gap of several weeks.
A single-dose vaccine can achieve herd immunity faster.
28 people reported blood clots by May
However, in early April, the US Government recommended pausing the Johnson
vaccine for further study after six women who received it developed an adverse
event of blood clots and one of them died. The women were aged 18 to 48 years.
They developed the symptoms in 6 to 13 days. Later, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) decided to end the pause as the benefits outweigh
the small number of AEFIs and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided
to add a warning label about blood clotting disorder. Thereafter vaccination
resumed, after a two-week halt. By May, 9 million doses had been administered
and the adverse event was noticed in 28 of them, and three of them died, according
to the CDC.
Internal blood clots block blood flow causing thrombosis, and can be fatal.
When there is an injury on our body a clot forms that prevents further bleeding.
This is not of any consequence but an internal clot - due to many factors -
in blood vessels can be. In the case of Johnson's vaccine, the clot formed in
the blood vessels of the brain in all the first six women. The condition is
called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).
However, what is puzzling is that these women also developed thrombocytopenia,
which has an inverse relation to CVST. The scientists examining the AEFIs say
the strange episodes are surprising! Same was the AEFIs for AstraZeneca detected
in Europe and some other countries leading to a pause in this case also. Some
recipients developed CVST and low platelet counts at the same time! Both are
viral carrier or vector vaccines. Russian Sputnik V also falls into this category.
There have been no report of clots vis-a-vis the mRNA vaccines of Pfizer and
Moderna.
Another contradiction eluding a scientific resolution is that about 20% of
covid patients in the ICU are found to develop blood clots, leading to damage
to vital organs! According to 'The Lancet - Haematology', the endothelial cells
have a role in the clot formation in covid patients. These two types of blood
clots and the common occurrences of thrombosis call for three different ways
of therapy, and they can be contraindicated!
An argument in defence is, chances of getting clots in case you contract covid
infection are more than in getting vaccinated.
The common AEFIs are:
- Severe headache,
- Backache,
- Neurological Symptoms,
- Severe abdominal pain,
- Shortness of breath,
- Leg swelling,
- Tiny red spots on the skin (petechiae)
Who can be vaccinated:
- The J&J vaccine, like the other vaccines, is also recommended for people
above 18 years of age.
- The WHO said the vaccine is safe and effective in people with comorbidities
such as hypertension, chronic lung disease, significant cardiac disease, obesity
and diabetes.
- It can also be taken by those who have had covid.
- This vaccine can be offered to breastfeeding women too.
Who should not be vaccinated:
- It is not recommended for individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to any
component of the vaccine.
- It should also not be administered to one running temperature.
The vaccination booths should have adequate built-in arrangements to
educate those getting vaccinated on what to do and what not to do after the
vaccination. Although this is vital, mostly it is taken for granted. They
also need to be briefed about the side-effects, serious and non-serious, and
the remedies, as many drugs and symptomatic therapies are contraindicated in
the management of post-vaccination side-effects.
The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunisation had issued
interim recommendations for the use of the Janssen in June last.
Janssen was found to have an efficacy of 85.4% against severe disease and 93.1
% against hospitalization, 28 days after inoculation.
Janssen is given as one dose (0.5 ml) intramuscularly unlike all other vaccines
requiring two doses separated by a gap of several weeks.
Johnson vaccine needs less refrigeration requirements than the Moderna or Pfizer.
Janssen has also undergone review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and found to be safe for use.
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SELECTIONS FROM OUR ARCHIVES |
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The incident has triggered a debate on social media whether the officer refused to take orders from a party leader or he was accused of any corruption, some netizens justifying the handling in either case, that Ratnakar was blocking public welfare work! It is true the Govt machinery has been the enemy Number One of the people of this country, existing for itself and for these politicians, for well over seven decades. India will never make an inch of progress - real progress, not make-believe-progress - unless and until this machinery is eliminated.
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UK's House of Commons votes to legalise assisted dying: What it means | |
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Work done, Elon Musk steps down from DOGE, leaves White House | |
Musk wrote: "My scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end... The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government." Now on it will be on auto-pilot.
PROGNOSIS: DOGE was prematurely born to protect the country by aborting an impending socio-economic disaster which very few people could see coming.
Although its immediate job was to save American taxpayers billions by slashing waste, eliminating fraud, cutting Government bloat and ensuring utmost efficiency in administration for the good of the people.
(Today's headlines )
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Ailing Asiatic lion Pataudi too dies of bird flu at Kanpur zoo
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Three other animals too had died - a tiger, a leopardess and a female wolf. Wolf Bhairavi died last Saturday, leopardess Mona died the Thursday before that and tiger Kesari died on March 30. Some of them had Shakti's symptoms but the cause of death has not been confirmed yet.
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48 tourist destinations closed in Kashmir following Pahalgam terror attack
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As tourist inflow is an indicator of normalcy returning to an erstwhile terrorist infested Valley, the Government has been trying hard to make everything travel-friendly, launching lot many projects and bringing Kashmir on the national rail map that physically completes the process of Kashmir's integration with the rest of India. And that defeats the designs of Pakistan eyeing Kashmir and simply explains a recrudescence of terrorism in J&K.
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Trump slaps ‘kind’, ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on trading partners; a 'lenient' 26% on India!
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What motivated Trump's newfound policy, apart from being a stunt to justify his existence in the White House, is a false realisation that increased tariff will make foreign goods prohibitive, thereby boosting local production, and create more jobs, and more prosperity will ring in! If that is true, India would have been shining by now: Producing own Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail and Scotch Whiskies! And what about coconut and palm oil by America!
(Today's headlines )
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Trump signs order to shut Education Dept - And the contrast with India
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In India the scene is just the opposite. Centralisation is the core agenda and identity of the ruling dispensation without which it has no existence, or in other words, it exists for that set of schemes only. A realisation of this never dawned upon any Opposition party in 2014 or any time thereafter, what to talk of being able to see it coming 70 years ago! The consequence of all this violation of basic natural law of the universe we cannot predict.
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Sunita, Wilmore's Dragon splashes down in Gulf: What delayed their return? |
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All 80k health workers in US offered $25,000 voluntary buyout: Administering wrong prescriptions!
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The terminations are part of a large-scale exercise going on all across Fed departments and organisations to reduce wasteful Government expenditure as decided by a Trump in a mess gone berserk, and improve administrative efficiency following the whims of billionaire and his associate Elon MusK and his DOGE. It has not been shared how terminations are going to raise the efficiency bar! It looks like Trump has stolen some of the prescriptions meant for India. But the American problems are quite different.
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