The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has postponed the announcement on whether South Africa can release the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccine doses from Aspen’s Gqeberha plant.
This is according to Bhekisisa, who reported that even though South Africa has procured 31 million doses of the J&J Covid-19 vaccine, the first two batches of 1.1 million and 900,000 cannot be released until the FDA has signalled the green light.
Bhekisisa adds that the education staff will not receive the J&J vaccinations during the week of June 7, regardless of the 480 000 doses J&J offered to South Africa as a replacement for some of the country’s potentially contaminated jabs.
According to EWN, Basil Manuel of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said: “We are busy currently with the logistics around rolling that out to all the schools including governing body paid teachers, starting with those over the age of 40 and starting with public schools.”
If the shipment of nearly half a million J&J doses is cleared by the FDA, it is set to only make its arrival in South Africa this week, with an expiry date of 28 June. The shots would then have to be used within a couple of weeks, Bhekisisa reports.
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