CDC orders discard of 12.5 million doses of J&J Covid-19 vaccine
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered healthcare providers to discard remaining doses they had in stock, citing they had expired last week.
It is estimated that 19 million people in the US received the J&J vaccine since its release, and that 31.5 million doses were delivered to states and other jurisdictions. This accounts for 12.5 million unused doses, CDC data reveals.
About 7% of those in the US who are vaccinated got the J&J as their first shot.
The CDC said the J&J vaccines were linked to 60 confirmed cases of thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), including nine deaths, according to the CDC.
Covid-19 no longer represents a public health emergency in the US and the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech are still available to the public, and are free as long as federal supplies are in stock.
Last year, Johnson & Johnson said it was temporarily stopping the production of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine at its Leiden plant in the Netherlands. It pledged to continue to fulfill its contractual obligations in relation to the Covax facility and the African Union.
Instead, it began making an experimental but potentially more profitable vaccine to protect against an unrelated virus.
The plant had been the sole facility manufacturing usable doses of the single-dose J&J Covid-19 vaccine.
