The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted the restrictions on the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine on April 23. The announcement came after the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met for a second time to discuss the data, with the benefits outweighing the risks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating the death of an Oregon woman and the hospitalization of another in Texas after receiving Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, state health officials said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested that Emergent BioSolutions temporarily pause production of ingredients for the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine at their facility in Baltimore.
Johnson & Johnson said on April 20 the company will resume rolling out its Covid-19 vaccine in Europe after the region’s medical regulator said the benefits of the shot outweigh the risk of very rare, potentially lethal blood clots.
Everyone in the United States aged 16 years and above is now eligible for Covid-19 vaccination, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on April 20. People aged 16 years and above who have underlying medical conditions that increase the risk of serious, life-threatening complications from Covid-19, should be among those offered the vaccine first.
The U.S. State Department will boost its “Do Not Travel” guidance to about 80 percent of countries worldwide, citing “unprecedented risk to travelers” from the Covid-19 pandemic.
New cases of Covid-19 in the United States fell 0.4 percent during the week ended April 18 after rising for four weeks in a row, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.
Just more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on April 18, with nearly 130 million people aged 18 years or more having received their first shot.
Four drugmakers, including Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., will go to trial on April 19 over claims they helped fuel an opioid crisis that has resulted in nearly 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States.
A U.S. panel will meet again next week to discuss whether the pause on the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine should continue, after delaying a vote on the matter earlier this week.
