15 million J&J vaccine doses ruined due to human error
What's the story
About 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine have been ruined after a plant in the United States mixed up ingredients, The New York Times has reported. The manufacturing error happened several weeks ago at a facility in Baltimore, Maryland, but was discovered only recently. Here are more details on this.
Details
US FDA investigates the matter
The Baltimore plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, which is a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish company whose vaccine is yet to be authorized for use in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration is currently investigating the matter. The mix-up is expected to delay the future shipments of the J&J vaccine.
Incident
The mix-up reportedly took place in late February
The mix-up occurred in late February, when one or more workers apparently confused a key ingredient for AstraZeneca's vaccine with that of Johnson & Johnson, naturally triggering doubts about their training and supervision. The mistake went unnoticed for days until the pharmaceutical company's quality control checks uncovered it, according to some people familiar with the situation.
Future
Error does not affect current shipments of vaccine
However, the error does not affect any Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being shipped and used across the US, including the shipments that several states are expecting to receive next week. This is so because all those doses were produced in the Netherlands, while all the future doses of the vaccine were set to come from Baltimore.
Details
US still looking to meet its vaccine commitment
In a statement issued on Wednesday, J&J said it expects to still be able to deliver 24 million doses by the end of April. Further, it is expected that there will be enough doses from J&J and the two other approved vaccine makers to meet the US government's commitment to provide enough vaccines to immunize every adult by the end of May.