NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans health director Jennifer Avegno said she was surprised by reports of Johnson & Johnson discarding millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses due to quality control problems, but the city will still have plenty of shots in the coming weeks.
Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that a batch of vaccine mage by Emergent BioSolutions at its Baltimore factory cannot be used because it did not meet quality standards. It’s still unclear how the problem could affect future deliveries of J&J’s vaccine.
“This caught us all by surprise,” Avegno said. She added that New Orleans will receive several thousands of doses of a different J&J vaccine batch that was scheduled to arrive in Louisiana next week.
In the meantime, Avegno said that the good news is that Pfizer and Moderna vaccine allocations are expected to stay stable or increase.
“We will have plenty of vaccines, but we just will probably be in another few weeks where we won’t have the Johnson & Johnson we were expecting,” Avegno said.
The Emergent BioSolutions was one of 10 contracted companies that Johnson & Johnson is using to speed up manufacturing of its recently approved vaccine, but it was key to J&J’s plan to deliver 100 million doses to the United States by the end of May.
Records obtained by The Associated Press show that Emergent has been cited repeatedly by the Food and Drug Administration for problems ranging from poorly trained employees to cracked vials and mold around one of its facilities.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.