Branding for the vaccination program on a staff member’s clothing outside a community vaccination center administering the BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, imported by Fosun Pharma in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, March 17, 2021.
Chan Long Hei | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Shares of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group in China fell after Hong Kong and Macao announced on Wednesday that they were discontinuing BioNTech Covid vaccinations.
Fosun Pharma, BioNTech’s partner in the development and distribution of the Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine in Greater China, has notified cities of a packaging error in batch 210102 of the vaccine.
Hong Kong and Macao said they are discontinuing German-made vaccinations as a precaution.
The cities said BioNTech and Fosun Pharma are investigating the cause of the vial cap failure, adding that there is currently no reason to doubt the vaccine’s safety.
Macao said all of his messenger RNA or mRNA vaccines belong to the affected lot. Hong Kong said it would also temporarily suspend vaccinations from batch 210104 until the investigation is completed.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Fosun Pharma fell 4.83% in the city on Wednesday afternoon.
Hong Kong approved the BioNTech emergency vaccine in January, while Macao granted the vaccine a special import permit in late February. Both areas received their first series of recordings at the end of February.
BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine has a proven effectiveness of 95% in adults, according to data from its global phase 3 clinical trial. And real-world data has shown “very strong” results from Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose Covid vaccine, even after just one injection.
The news comes as countries around the world rush to vaccinate their populations in the face of increasing Covid cases in most regions.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 124 million infections have been reported worldwide and the death toll from Covid has exceeded 2.7 million.