Johnson & Johnson doses held up by Health Canada

Health Canada has put a hold on doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine that came into the country this week.

Saskatchewan was expecting a shipment of about 9,300 doses of the vaccine to arrive next week, likely on Tuesday.

Health Canada issued a statement Friday saying it wasn’t going to release the recently received Johnson & Johnson doses due to concerns about a facility in Baltimore that was involved in their production.

According to Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently inspected the Emergent BioSolutions facility and “noted multiple areas of concern.”

Now, Health Canada said, it “has learned that a drug substance produced at the Emergent site was used in the manufacturing of the initial (Johnson & Johnson) vaccines received on April 28 and intended for use in Canada.

“The drug substance is the active ingredient that undergoes further processing before becoming the final product (i.e., the vaccine). The final (Johnson & Johnson) vaccines were manufactured at a different site located outside of the U.S.”

As a result, Health Canada won’t release the doses until it’s satisfied they meet quality, safety and efficacy standards.

Johnson & Johnson is a single-shot vaccine, meaning a person is fully vaccinated after just one dose.

Before the Health Canada advisory was issued, Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman said most of the doses that arrived in the province were to be funneled through the drive-through clinics in major centres.

“This is encouraging that we can do over 9,000 people next week through our drive-throughs in the major centres and get them fully vaccinated,” said Merriman.

He said some doses would be held back to be used in hospital settings for people who normally wouldn’t be caught up in the vaccination process.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick