An unfortunate "mistake" at a Baltimore factory has ruined roughly 15 million doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, according to a report Wednesday from The New York Times.
The factory, run by Emergent BioSolutions, is currently manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines and federal investigators are attributing the surprise mix-up to "human error," the story said. It has also forced regulators to delay authorization for the plant’s production lines, which were expected to produce the majority of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine moving forward.
It's not yet clear what the specific issue was.
While current distribution and use of the single-dose vaccine isn’t impacted, the error "has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates," as reported by the paper.
The Johnson & Johnson doses already out for distribution in America were reportedly created in the Netherlands.
As the Biden administration pushes to open up COVID-19 vaccines to all American adults, the one-shot Johnson & Johnson product has been credited with helping to accelerate the president’s aggressive timeline.
The two other COVID-19 vaccines that have received emergency use authorization from the FDA - Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna - are two-shot doses.
However, taking 15 million doses away from future shipments will likely impact those plans. The paper reported that "all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine - projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month - were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant."
The status of the Baltimore shipments are unknown as quality control issues are organized and reviewed.
Even with the error, federal officials still expect to meet President Biden's goal of available COVID-19 vaccines for every adult by the end of May.
Related
