The White House says the US will still have enough vaccines for all Americans by the end of next month, despite issues with a single batch of “drug,” resulting in the loss of 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“We are still on track to have the number of doses we need to vaccinate all adult Americans by the end of May,” Psaki said Monday. “This was not even a facility approved by the FDA.”
She went on to say that the US was “not betting on these doses” and that Johnson & Johnson “has assured us that by April we will get the 24 million doses they have promised.”
Under pressure from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins as to whether the issues could contribute to hesitation about vaccines in the United States, Psaki replied, “We haven’t seen that.”
“This is why the FDA approval process has been put in place,” she said. In many ways, the process worked because the FDA had not approved the site. Steps have been taken to address some of the issues, and we also have a series of contingency plans. ”
“When we’re all talking about this, ‘why have we ordered so many doses, why have we gotten to the point where we share doses with every country around the world?’ Part of it is because we have to plan for things to come. Things like this come up, “she said.
“We have to take into account a series of unforeseen events,” added Psaki. “That’s one of the many reasons we’ll still be in a place where we have enough vaccines for adult Americans by the end of May.”
Some background information: As CNN previously reported, a source familiar with the manufacturing process of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine told CNN Saturday that the loss was not a major setback.
Johnson & Johnson has said that a single batch of “drug products” has failed quality control and has been discarded. The company’s vaccine currently distributed in the US is made at a facility in the Netherlands, but Emergent BioSolutions, a contract manufacturer, produced doses at a facility in Baltimore. The plant was awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the contamination issue was reported.
“Once the plant is back up and running and the way this particular vaccine is made in these large batches, it should be good to make this batch right. It should be a setback of just a few weeks, ”the source told CNN.
Emergent also made a vaccine for AstraZeneca, whose vaccine has yet to be approved in the U.S. Like Johnson & Johnson’s, AstraZeneca’s vaccine uses a virus to transfer genetic material – a so-called viral vector.
Emergent and Johnson & Johnson have said quality control measures have addressed the problem. None of the vaccines made at the plant had been shipped to be bottled or distributed, and officials have insisted that no one was endangered by the contamination.
CNN reported that the company has been assisting in the production of Covid-19 vaccines for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca for months, according to a source familiar with the situation.
In addition to the batch of 15 million doses to be discarded, Emergent has successfully produced 115 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which are at various stages of the supply chain, the source said.
The source added that it is “not all that uncommon” for the pharmaceutical industry to discard batches of vaccine, and the fact that Emergent and J&J discovered the contamination before sending any of the affected doses “showed the system was working.”