The first corona vaccines from the Leiden pharmaceutical company Janssen will arrive in the United States on Tuesday, senior officials of the American government have said. Janssen can directly deliver 4 million doses to the Americans.

By the end of March, according to Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the American owner of Janssen, 20 million doses must have been administered across the United States. J&J wants to reach the target number of 100 million vaccines administered by the end of June this year.

The US drug regulator (FDA) gave the Janssen vaccine the green light on Sunday to be allowed on the US market. The vaccine only needs one shot, unlike the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines that were previously approved. The vaccine is also easier to distribute because it can be kept at room temperature and does not require freezers to store it.

The Biden government hopes to be able to vaccinate more minorities with the new vaccines. Government officials stressed that vaccination rates among black and brown Americans are “not as high as we want.”

They hope to increase vaccination coverage by opening more vaccination centres in areas where many minorities live and by deploying mobile vaccination centres to reach minorities in hard-to-reach areas.