By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said the two million Johnson & Johnson vaccines at the Gqeberha plant will no longer be used.
The acting minister was speaking while on her first leg of her national tour at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.
The announcement comes just hours after the US Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) decided to discard about 60 million doses made at the Baltimore plant due to contamination.
“Two million doses that are affected but currently in the store warehouse in Gqeberha, so obviously we can’t ignore the fact that it takes our vaccine to roll out a bit backwards”.
Kubayi-Ngubane said the contamination of the vaccines is a major setback to the country’s immunisation campaign.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday that some batches of the J&J version were not fit to use, while others are still under review. Two lots have been approved, though it’s not clear where those are headed or how many that covers.
South Africa is heavily reliant on the J&J vaccine to meet a target of inoculating two-thirds of its 60 million population this year, having ordered more than 31 million of the single-dose shot.
Aspen Pharmacara, Africa’s largest drugmaker, has a contract to fill and package the doses at a factory in the coastal town of Gqebherha, until recently known as Port Elizabeth.
The vaccines awaiting distribution from the Gqebherha plant need further assessment by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority,” the country’s ministry of health said in a statement.
That will determine “if they are suitable for use in South Africa. There is now a real possibility that they may not be, however this is for the regulator to rule on,” it said.
To compensate, 300,000 J&J doses are cleared to be shipped to South Africa “as a matter of extreme urgency,” the ministry said.
Furthermore, the drugmaker has agreed a contract to supply the vaccine to the country and will therefore need to honour that in time.
The news still marks a major setback in South Africa’s vaccine rollout — just as a third wave of infections is gathering pace.
The government has been heavily criticized for delays in ordering doses, and inoculations to the general public only began in mid-May.