First Johnson & Johnson single shot Covid-19 vaccine set to arrive in Gulf

A delivery of the J&J-owned Janssen vaccine was due in Bahrain on Monday night

A billboard urges the public to sign up for the voluntary vaccine outside Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre in Manama. The tiny island nation has put technology at the heart of its response, using WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and chatbots to deliver test results and information. Mazen Mahdi / AFP

Saudis are greeted by a health worker as they enter a new coronavirus vaccination centre at the Jeddah old airport, Saudi Arabia. AP Photo

The Seha Vaccination Centre at Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal can immunise up to 3,000 people per day. Victor Besa / The National 

A woman attends her appointment for a second dose of a coronavirus vaccine at Bahrain International Exhibition & Convention Centre (BIECC), in Manama, Bahrain December 24, 2020. Reuters

Bahrain's Mobile Vaccination Unit. Courtesy: Bahrain News Agency

A man is inoculated at Seha Vaccination Centre in the Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal area. Victor Besa / The National 

A man receives his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the Omani capital, Muscat. AFP

Health workers greet people after they receive their vaccine at a new coronavirus vaccination centre, at the Jeddah old airport in Saudi Arabia. Amr Nabil / AP

A nurse administers a dose of vaccine against the covid-19 diseases at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Centre in the capital of Saudi Arabia. Fayez Nureldine / AFP

Kuwaitis arrive to get the Covid-19 vaccine at Al Masayel new vaccination centre in Kuwait City. Yasser Al Zayyat / AFP

Medical staff stand ready at the Kuwait vaccination centre for Covid -19 at the International Fairgrounds in Kuwait City. Sports stadiums, cathedrals and theme parks the world over have been rapidly repurposed as temporary vaccination centres in a global drive to administer the life-saving shots. AFP

A woman pushes another in a wheelchair as they queue to register before receiving a dose of Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine at the make-shift vaccination centre erected at the Kuwait International Fairground, in the Mishref suburb south of Kuwait City. Yasser Al Zayyat / AFP

The world's first single-shot coronavirus vaccine was scheduled to arrive in the Gulf on Monday night.

Bahrain prepared to receive the consignment of Janssen vaccines and was expected to begin using it this week.

The kingdom was among the first nations to approve the vaccine - almost immediately after US authorities gave it the go ahead on Friday.

A local agent for Johnson & Johnson, which owns Belgium-based Janssen Pharmaceutica, and a Bahrain government official both confirmed the anticipated shipment to The National on Monday.

Hospitals were told to expect the vaccines to be available almost immediately and to update their websites and bookings accordingly.

The number of available doses was not known and such figures were rarely released by Gulf governments.

Bahrain was among the global leaders in the race to vaccinate its small population. But it has since faced setbacks as the arrival of supplies of Pfizer-BioNTech slowed to a crawl.

In January, its health ministry said scheduled shipments had failed to arrive on time.

Bahrain also uses China's Sinopharm  - the most widely-used vaccine in the UAE.

It has limited supplies of the Indian-made Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and Russia's Sputnik V.

Bahrain remained seventh in the world as of February 28, having administered 17 doses per 100 people in the population. Israel and UAE were first and second respectively.

Janssen's single-shot vaccine is designed to protect with a single dose instead of two shots three or four weeks apart.

In the US and seven other countries where trials took place, the single-shot vaccine was 66 per cent effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective – 85 per cent – against the most serious symptoms.

That meant it is not as strong as some two-shot rivals but still potentially crucial at a time of major vaccine shortages.

A high bar was set by two vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, each of which was about 95 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic illness when given in two doses.

Russia's Sputnik V is just over 91 per cent effective and China's Sinopharm is 79 per cent effective.

The J&J-Janssen findings had some geographical variation. The vaccine worked better in the US – 72 per cent effective against moderate to severe infections – compared with 57 per cent in South Africa, where it was up against a more contagious variant of the virus.

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