Johnson and Johnson halts coronavirus vaccine trials after participants fall ill

Mumbai : Johnson & Johnson on Monday announced that it is temporarily suspending the clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine after some of the participants have fallen ill.

"We have temporarily paused further dosing in all our Covid-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials, including the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to an unexplained illness in a study participant," the company said in a statement.

During the halt, online registrations have been closed for around 60,000 patients. 

J&J said that serious adverse events (SAEs) are "an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies." Company guidelines allowed them to pause a study to determine if the SAE was related to the drug in question and whether to resume study.

In September 2020, the company had started enrolling for 60,000 candidates for the coronavirus vaccine. The aim is to test vaccine on people from more than 200 sites in the US and around the world.

The other countries where the trials were taking place are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa.