IHS Pauses Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine

On Tuesday, April 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they are recommending a pause on the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine while they review data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals receiving the vaccine product. Per this recommendation, the Indian Health Service (IHS) has paused all J&J vaccine administration.

IHS has three vaccine safety monitoring systems in place. To date, there have been no reported cases of the rare and severe type of blood clot seen in some individuals who have received this vaccine. The J&J vaccine makes up approximately 1.5% percent of IHS’s recorded shots in arms to, and IHS does not expect this pause to affect the agency’s goal of fully vaccinating 44% of its active adult patients by the end of April.

IHS employees have been advised to offer Pfizer and Moderna vaccines when available to patients that are scheduled to receive the J&J vaccine and will work to ensure that all vaccination sites have adequate stock of these vaccine products.

For more information, you may also visit the FDA YouTube site to hear the FDA and CDC press conference held this morning to answer questions about this pause in Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine administration.

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