J&J vaccine doses stored in secret place for safety check

While the country grapples with the impact of Covid-19 and is rated among those with low vaccination rates, SA sits with an undisclosed number of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 doses at a secret location following fears of contamination at a US manufacturing plant.

The national health department declined to give details, but spokesperson Popo Maja confirmed the batch was being held for safety verification processes.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that quality control problems at the Baltimore plant manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines had led health officials on three continents to pause distribution of millions of Johnson & Johnson doses because of suspected contamination.

The newspaper reported that one likely cause of the contamination was failure of some employees to shower and change clothes when they moved between the factory zones dedicated to Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

The New York Times reported that safety tests had identified traces of the harmless virus used to manufacture Astrazeneca’s vaccine in one batch of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine before it left the factory.

Millions of these doses have been shipped to SA and other countries abroad.

The publication quoted health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize as saying: “In SA, doses are sitting in a facility awaiting a protracted safety verification process with international regulatory agencies.

“This is a precautionary measure following the adverse findings at the Emergent plant.”

Maja on Sunday said: “It is true, that batch is in a well-secured storage waiting for safety verification process by the US regulatory agency in particular.

This is a precautionary measure that SA and the international community have taken.

“It is not in the best interest of the country to publicise where these vaccines are stored.

“We don’t know how long the process of investigation by the US regulatory authorities will take,” Maja said.

Vaccine ministerial advisory committee chair Professor Barry Schoub said he was aware of the contamination.

“I know that contamination at that plant has led to government putting a pause on procuring the vaccine internationally.

“Baltimore started all this and all Johnson & Johnson plants, including the one in Gqeberha, will be inspected,” he said.

The Eastern Cape, however, seems to have its plans in place for the vaccine rollout.

Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said as far as he knew, Johnson & Johnson had been given the go-ahead by SA to continue with the trials.

He said two million doses of the vaccine were expected later in May and would be manufactured locally.

“We are expecting an allocation of two million doses from the Gqeberha plant. The doses will be coupled with Pfizer, which will be focusing on the urban areas due to its protocols, while Johnson & Johnson will be rolled out to rural sections of the province.

“This is why we are now focused on registering as many 60-year-olds as possible so that, in the middle of this month, we can start with the vaccination process focusing on that age group. We are targeting a total of 4.5 million people in the province,” Kupelo said.

Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, spokesperson for Eastern Cape premier and chair of the provincial Covid-19 command committee Oscar Mabuyane, said the procurement and efficacy of the vaccine was the competence of the national health department.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Mkhize released a statement about four cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus having been detected in SA. He said there was no cause for panic as all cases were quarantined.

“The four cases of Africab1617.2 [the Indian variant of the coronavirus] have been detected in Gauteng (two) and Kwazulu-natal (two), and all have a history of recent arrival from India.

“All cases have been isolated and managed according to the national Covid-19 case management guidelines, and contact tracing has been performed to limit the spread of this variant.”

This comes amid reports two weeks ago about an Indian ship that docked at the port of Durban, where the crew was said to have been sick with the Indian variant.

Eleven cases of the B11.7 variant, which was first detected in the UK, have also been identified in SA, according to news reports.

“The B11.7 [strain] has been detected in community samples and this therefore suggests that community transmission of B11.7 has already set in,” Mkhize said.