The data comes from a trial conducted by the South African Medical Research Council that examined more than 69,000 healthcare workers who had received two doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine with a corresponding group of unvaccinated people, according to a Dec. 30 news release. It took place in South Africa from mid-November to mid-December, when omicron was the dominant variant across the country.
“We believe that the protection could be due to the robust T-cell responses induced by the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine,” Mathai Mammen, MD, PhD, global head for Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical division, said in a statement. “Furthermore, these data suggest that omicron is not affecting the T-cell responses generated by our vaccine.”
The data was published Dec. 29 in the preprint server MedRxiv. It has not been peer reviewed.
