COVID vaccine trials were forced to pause when a participant fell ill.

Medical company Johnson & Johnson is one of the numerous medical and pharmaceutical companies currently contracted for work on a potential vaccine for COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson’s studies are currently in late stages as they determine the safety and effectiveness of their vaccine candidate on human test subjects. Unfortunately, their vaccine trials have been forced to temporarily pause.

Johnson & Johnson announced on Monday that one of the participants in their vaccine study had fallen ill with an undisclosed sickness, forcing them to pause testing on their vaccine candidate until they can determine what exactly caused the reaction and if it was directly related to the vaccine candidate. In clinical studies, participants occasionally become sick by simple coincidence, or if they have an atypical body structure. As the study is a double-blind, wherein one group receives a placebo vaccine, there is a possibility the participant’s sickness may not be related to the vaccine at all.

Johnson & Johnson have assured spontaneous development of illness, as well as other, similar events are a common occurrence in large-scale clinical studies for medicine and vaccines, and that they have a panel of physicians currently running tests on the participant to determine what caused their condition. The exact details of the participant’s illness have not been disclosed out of respect for their privacy.

Johnson & Johnson is the second company researching a vaccine that has been forced to suspend their operations. Recently, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca was forced to pause their own trials after a participant became sick. In this case, a female participant developed severe neurological complications within her spinal area. The participant fell ill last month and is still under observation. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has since restarted their tests at a new testing site.