Illinois Department of Public Health Resumes Use of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine

Illinois Follows CDC and FDA Guidance After Safety Review Suggests Potential Blood Clots are Very Rare Events

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) will resume use of the Johnson & Johnson/ Janssen (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine following the announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that they have lifted the previously recommended pause on the J&J vaccine.  The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) conducted a thorough review of the vaccine after reports of six cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals following administration of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine.

The pause of the vaccine allowed experts to conduct an extensive review of these 15 cases, as well as inform providers and clinicians about the potential adverse events and how they can be recognized and treated.

Providers in Illinois who previously received doses of J&J vaccine will be able to immediately begin administering the vaccine.  Allocations of the J&J vaccine by the federal government will resume next week.  Approximately 760,000 doses were allocated to Illinois before the pause, of which approximately 290,000 were administered.

The pause was proof that the extensive safety monitoring system is working and was able to detect a very small number of adverse events. The FDA has concluded that the known and potential benefits of the J&J vaccine outweigh its known and potential risks.