J&J halts vaccine trials after participant falls ill

Johnson & Johnson halted clinical trials of its Covid-19 vaccine after a participant fell ill, the second time that a front-runner developer has paused testing in the race to create a viable immunisation against the virus.

The participant’s illness is being evaluated, the company said late on Monday, adding that it would share information after further investigation. The vaccine is undergoing tests in as many as 60,000 volunteers from Peru to South Africa.

“Adverse events—illnesses, accidents, etc.—even those that are serious, are an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies,” J&J said in a statement.

AstraZeneca last month temporarily stopped tests of its own vaccine candidate after a trial participant fell ill. That study has since resumed.

US President Donald Trump has said the recent remarks made by a World Health Organization (WHO) official proved that he “was right” about not imposing Covid-19 lockdowns, while alleging that the global health body was dominated by China and was “wrong about everything”.

“The World Health Organization came out a little while ago and admitted that Donald Trump was right. The lockdowns are doing tremendous damage to these Democrat-run states where they are in lockdown,” he said at a rally in Sanford, Florida.

Trump was referring to remarks by WHO’s special envoy on Covid-19 David Nabarro, who reportedly said that restrictive measures like lockdowns should only be treated as a last resort. He also said that lockdowns have severely impacted countries that rely on tourism.

Trump said, “I took us out of the WHO because they were wrong about everything. Although, they corrected themselves - they say I was right about the lockdowns. (I asked) Why are we paying $500 million a year and China which has 1.4 billion people is paying $39 million per year - they couldn’t explain, so I took us out,” he said.

Trump further attacked the WHO, saying that they are being dominated by Beijing. “China dominates them and I said it doesn’t work that way anymore. They will take us back in so fast with less money,” he said.

In July, Trump had pulled the US out of the WHO after he alleged the world body tried to cover up the Covid-19 outbreak, which first emerged in China late last year. The US has also backed out of a global effort led by the WHO to develop and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine.