Another 175,000 Janssen Covid vaccine doses to be offered in the coming weeks

An additional 175,000 doses of the Janssen Vaccine will be made available to the Netherlands residents in the coming weeks, the Health Ministry announced. An initial batch of 200,000 doses was already offered from Wednesday, marking the first time the Dutch were able to express their preference for their choice of a Covid-19 jab.

The Janssen Vaccine was highly sought after by many people this week as it only requires one shot for maximum protection. The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines require two doses for a person to be considered fully vaccinated, unless they have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection in the past.

"With summer just around the corner, the interest in the Janssen vaccine is enormous," Health Minister Hugo de Jonge wrote on Twitter. "That is why it is great that an additional 175,000 doses will become available in the coming weeks with an extra delivery. A safe and effective vaccine of which one shot is sufficient."

Interested people can book their appointment via the special telephone line, 0800-1295. The high interest made the special booking line to be very difficult to reach on Wednesday and Thursday. Some 185,000 appointments were made until Friday evening, the Ministry announced.

It is still not clear how quickly Janssen Vaccine doses will be delivered to the Netherlands, De Jonge said in Parliament on Thursday. This calendar week, the country was likely to get a shipment of 72 thousand doses, with 142 thousand more expected next week.

The Janssen Vaccine went back into use on Friday when the first people who signed up for the jabs were administered their shots. Clinical trials showed The Janssen Vaccine was slightly less effective compared to the mRNA vaccines in use in the Netherlands, though the vaccines were tested at different times, in different locations, and under different epidemiological circumstances. It is still regarded as a highly effective and preventing serious symptoms of Covid-19.