Duke has paused use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, in keeping with a Tuesday move by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to temporarily stop using the vaccine after reports of rare blood clots in people who had received it.
Students who were scheduled to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week have been offered the Moderna vaccine instead, wrote Michael Schoenfeld, Duke’s vice president for public affairs and government relations, in a message to The Chronicle.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommended on Tuesday that the United States pause using the vaccine because of six reported cases of a severe blood clot in people who had received it. North Carolina followed suit hours later.
Duke announced March 25 that it would receive enough Johnson & Johnson vaccines for all currently-enrolled undergraduate and graduate students in the Durham area. The University invited all students to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment through Duke Health beginning April 1.
More than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered in the United States so far.
This is a developing story and will be updated if new information becomes available.
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Matthew Griffin was editor-in-chief of The Chronicle's 116th volume.