Johnson and Johnson Covid vaccine shipments face delays as factory mix-up sees 15 MILLION doses thrown away

AN EMPLOYEE error at a vaccine manufacturing plant in Baltimore has resulted in 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson shot being thrown out and future shipments delayed. 

The mix-up happened at a plant run by Emergent BioSolutions which partners with both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca on their Covid vaccines.

The vaccines use the same technology, transmitting a harmless version of the virus into cells to create antibodies. 

Yet the versions of the virus used are different and cannot be interchanged. 

The New York Times reports that in late February, a worker confused the two vaccines during the production process.  

Emergent’s mistake went unnoticed for days until Johnson & Johnson’s quality control checks discovered it. 

It has raised questions about the training the plant workers have received and how much supervision they are under.  

None of the doses ever left the plant but by the time J&J uncovered the error, 15 million had been contaminated. 

The mistake does not affect doses that are already being used or are currently being shipped out as they were manufactured in an FDA-approved plant in the Netherlands. 

However, the 24 million doses of the J&J vaccine that were promised for April were to come from the Baltimore plant. 

Shipments from the plant have been halted as the FDA investigates the mishap.

It emerged on Wednesday that White House officials where aware of a problem with production two weeks ago.

Politico reports that senior health officials were aware that there could be a delay in shipments but did not knwon the exact details of the situation.

J&J has promised the US government 100 million doses by the end of May, which could now be significantly delayed. 

The company barely met its goal of shipping out 20 million doses to the US by the end of March. 

Federal officials still expect to have enough vaccine doses to complete President Joe Biden’s goal to immunize every US adult by the end of May.

The AstraZeneca vaccine also manufactured in the plant has not been approved in the US.

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post Moment police find suspected murder victim ALIVE five years later
Next post Epidemiologist predicts surge of dangerous COVID-19 variant in US