When exposed to the virus, six out of six animals that received the vaccine candidate were fully protected from lung disease and five out of six were protected from infection, as measured by the presence of virus in nasal swabs, according to the study published in the journal Nature.
"This gives us confidence that we can test a single shot vaccine in this epidemic and know if it has a protective effect on humans," Dr. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at J&J, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The drug maker said it had started early-stage human trials in the United States and Belgium and that it would evaluate its vaccine candidate in more than 1,000 healthy adults ages 18 to 55, as well as adults 65 and older. .
The US government is supporting J & J's vaccination effort with $ 456 million in funds as part of a wave of spending aimed at speeding up the production of a vaccine to end the pandemic, which has infected millions and killed to more than 660,000 people.
Stoffels said previous tests of this type of vaccine on other diseases found that a second injection significantly increases protection. But in a pandemic, a single shot vaccine has a significant advantage, avoiding many of the logistical problems involved in getting people back for their second dose.
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