BUFFALO, N.Y. — A major mix-up in vaccine production at a plant affiliated with the manufacturing of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-10 vaccine has reportedly led to millions of doses of J&J being ruined.
2 On Your Side is looking into the possible impacts statewide and locally.
The Governor’s Office says in a statement: "We are closely monitoring concerning reports about a production issue at a Johnson & Johnson affiliated factory in Baltimore that may have impacted millions of doses. New Yorkers can rest assured that next week's allocation will not be impacted and all appointments scheduled at State-run mass vaccination sites will be honored. As we learn more information about potential impacts going forward, we will provide updates."
According to a press release from Johnson and Johnson, quality control identified one batch of drug substance that did not meet standards at a company called Emergent Biosolutions.
Johnson & Johnson says this batch never made it to filling and finishing stages.
According to reports, up to 15 million doses have been ruined.
A spokesperson for the governor says the state is still not sure if any of these doses were actually intended for New York.
In Niagara County, the county health department has been working with Eastern Niagara Hospital to identify people in rural communities to get them vaccinated with the J&J vaccine.
"We don’t know what the impact will be yet. We were just notified about it yesterday," public health director Dan Stapleton said. "We hope it won’t have a major impact on our vaccination supplies, but it’s a big problem. We’re talking 15 million. You compare that to Moderna, which is twice, that’s equal to 30 million doses of Moderna, when you talk about the vaccinations that we’re missing out on."
As for outreach efforts to vaccinate hard to reach communities, they will continue, at least for now.
"Those efforts haven’t been put on hold, we hope that it doesn’t cause us to have a pause in that approach in that identification, we haven’t seen that yet, time will tell," Stapleton said.
In New York state, the J&J vaccine has been used primarily for those who are homebound and people who are in hard to reach communities.
As for local supply of J&J, a spokesperson for the Erie County Health Department says the county did not receive any J&J this week. The county does plan to order more Johnson & Johnson doses next week for homebound residents.
Paul Pettit, the public health director for Genesee and Orleans counties, says they have not been getting J&J doses on a regular basis, adding that they only received a one-time shipment of 100 doses a couple weeks ago which was used on homebound residents.
He goes on to say that a loss of doses could affect health departments getting more vaccine in a couple weeks.
Johnson & Johnson says in a statement that the company still plans on hitting their production goals.
"While it is extremely unfortunate that such a large amount of J&J doses were compromised, J&J does feel that it will meet its quota and stay on track for allocations across the country which would include those slated for WNY," said Dr. Nancy Nielsen, senior associate dean for health policy at UB Jacobs School of Medicine.
"If providers and pharmacies followed state guidance and did not book appointments beyond next week's allocation, all doses, including those for home-bound and hard to reach areas, should arrive as scheduled."