⁍ Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday kicked off a final 60,000-person trial of a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

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⁍ The company expects results of the Phase III trial by year end or early next year.

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⁍ Rival vaccines from Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca all require two shots separated by several weeks.

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– A potentially game-changer: Johnson & Johnson says it has begun testing an experimental vaccine on 60,000 people in a final trial designed to show whether a single dose can prevent serious disease, reports Reuters. The single-shot vaccine, or COVID-19, is similar to vaccines currently in development by Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, which all require two shots separated by several weeks. “The benefits of a single-shot vaccine are potentially profound in terms of mass immunization campaigns and global pandemic control,” says Harvard vaccine researcher Dan Barouch, who helped design the vaccine. J&J says the safety and level of protection in its phase 3 trial is on par with those seen in its animal studies. The goal of the trial is to test whether the vaccine can prevent moderate to severe disease after a single dose, as well as whether it can prevent serious disease requiring medical intervention and whether it can prevent milder cases of the virus. The trial will be overseen by an independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board that will review vaccine safety and effectiveness.