Canada rejects 300K J&J vaccine doses made at troubled Baltimore facility

Canada has rejected 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the U.S. after it was made at a Baltimore facility riddled with contamination issues.

“Health Canada has completed its quality review of the shipment of Janssen vaccines that are currently in quarantine,” Health Canada announced on Friday.

“To protect the health and safety of Canadians in response to concerns regarding a drug substance produced at the Emergent BioSolutions facility in Baltimore Maryland, Health Canada will not be releasing the shipment,” the agency added.

Canada said they won’t accept any more vaccine doses from the Emergent BioSolutions factory in Maryland until Canadian officials can inspect the facility in person, which will most likely happen this summer.

The statement came the same day South Africa said they needed to conduct further reviews to determine the safety of J&J doses that were sent to the country from the same facility. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has pushed for 60 million doses to be tossed from the facility due to contamination concerns.

There were 10 million doses still sent out with warnings from the FDA about the facility’s malpractice, the New York Times reported.

The Times was the first to report on the issues plaguing the facility, ranging from contamination to undertrained employees.