Race to use expiring COVID-19 vaccines in US amid global shortage
U.S. REGULATORS extend expiration date of hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses in a desperate bid to salvage expiring shots to battle the nation’s summer surge in infections.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months when properly stored. The FDA’s move gives the shots an extra six weeks as public officials press more Americans to get inoculated.
Similar efforts are happening in multiple states as public health officials try to ensure that soon-to-expire shots are put into arms before they must be discarded.
The surge in infections is largely due to the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, which has spread rapidly, particularly among unvaccinated people. Inoculation rates have climbed only slightly after a steep fall from their April peak.
Federal health officials have shipped an additional 8 million doses of the J&J shot to states that have not yet been used, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine-tracking website. The company did not share specific expiration dates.
The J&J vaccine is not the only one facing expiration. States also report that many Pfizer and Moderna doses are approaching expiration, which is set at six months from the manufacturing date. Some states have set up marketplaces for shot providers or dedicated staff to redistributing about-to-expire vaccines to places that need them. This month, U.S. health regulators added a warning about links to a potentially dangerous neurological reaction. That followed a break in its use in April after the shot was linked to a rare blood clot disorder. Government health advisers said the overall benefits of the shot still greatly outweigh the risks.
Pfizer and Moderna have already supplied more than enough doses to vaccinate all eligible Americans. More than 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with the companies’ two-dose shots. By comparison, just 13 million, or 9%, have been vaccinated with the J&J shot. All told, nearly 164 million people have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, or just over 49% of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, there is a drastic global imbalance in access to COVID-19 vaccines between rich and poor nations. While some countries are considering vaccinating children and giving booster jabs, others have so far been unable to vaccinate the elderly – the age group most vulnerable to developing serious disease – and health care workers. Nearly four billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been injected around the world in at least 216 territories, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) count.