OREANDA-NEWS. American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson has temporarily suspended trials of the COVID-19 vaccine on the third phase due to an “unexplained” illness of a study participant. The disease is being researched by the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board, as well as by the company’s doctors, Johnson & Johnson reported.

The pharmaceutical company emphasized that adverse events are expected when conducting clinical trials, so there are instructions for such a case. This ensures that research can be stopped if anything suspected to be related to investigational drugs happens, the report says.

The company began third stage of vaccine trials on September 23. The medicine is manufactured by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. It was assumed that up to 60 thousand volunteers from three continents would take part in the research.