Biden plans to order 100mn more J&J Covid vaccine doses

Washington, March 11 (IANS) US President Joe Biden has said that his administration will order another 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.The planned purchase would bring the country's total vaccine order to 800 million doses."On Saturday, we hit a record of 2.9 million vaccinations in one day in America," Biden said on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.Biden said last week the United States would have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for every adult American by the end of May, which would dramatically accelerate his timeline previously set for the end of July.There are three Covid-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use in the US.The US Food and Drug Administration authorized the one developed by American drugmaker Pfizer in partnership with German company BioNTech, and another by American drugmaker Moderna, in December last year.Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use on February 27. It is the first single-dose vaccine authorized in the US.Over 127 million vaccine doses have been distributed across the US as of Wednesday, and more than 95 million doses have been administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
--IANS int/pgh