Johnson & Johnson vaccine creates fewer antibodies against delta variant, study reveals

The single-dose covid vaccine Johnson & Johnson produced relatively low levels of antibodies against the delta variant in one study, raising questions about how well this vaccine will resist the strain that currently accounts for the vast majority of cases in the United States.

The lab study, published on the bioRxiv preprint server, has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal and focuses on a key part of the immune response, called neutralizing antibodies.

Scientists at New York University found that the J&J vaccine produced approximately five times lower levels of protective antibodies against the delta variant, compared to the levels it produced against an early coronavirus strain.

The delta variant accounts for 83% of genetically sequenced cases in the United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday at a Senate hearing.

While the two-dose messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. also produced fewer antibodies against the highly transmissible delta strain, the reduction was less dramatic, the study found.

Compared to two doses of mRNA vaccines, the single-dose J&J vaccine “showed a more pronounced decrease in neutralizing titer against variants, increasing the potential for decreased protection,” the NYU researchers said in the study.

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