A booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after six months appears to increase antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2, NPR reports.
The company says in a press release that results from two Phase 1/2a studies indicate that a second shot six months after initial vaccination leads to a rapid increase in spike protein-binding antibodies. The response, according to the company, was nine-fold higher after 28 days than the initial inoculation. The results have been submitted to the MedRxiv preprint server, according to J&J.
Last week, the US announced that adults who received either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccines would be eligible for a booster shot eight months after their first set of shots. That plan, the New York Times adds, did not include the J&J vaccine. But NPR notes that the company is submitting its results to the Food and Drug Administration.
"We look forward to discussing with public health officials a potential strategy for our Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, boosting eight months or longer after the primary single-dose vaccination," Mathai Mammen, the global head of Janssen Research & Development, which is part of J&J, says in a statement.