Germany demands replacement of 60 million contaminated J&J vaccine doses

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reported that nearly 60 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine have been disposed off due to possible contamination.

FDA identified possible contamination of vaccines during a visit to a vaccine plant in Baltimore. This has led to a shortage of doses and Germany is now demanding its replacement as soon as possible.

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"This is regrettable, because every vaccine dose counts," German Health Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday. "Therefore, we expect Johnson & Johnson to deliver this quantity as soon as possible in July."

The German ministry also asked other pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer-BioNtech, AstraZeneca and Moderna to keep their commitment and deliver the promised doses on time.

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"As of today we expect Biontech [-Pfizer] to deliver 50.3 million doses, Moderna 6.4 million doses and AstraZeneca with 12.4 million doses to meet their respective current supply commitments for the second quarter," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Germany has removed the US, Canada and Austria from the list of high coronavirus risk countries.

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The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases announced a list of 19 countries that are not being considered high-risk nations by Germany. These countries include Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cyprus, Kosovo, Lebanon, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, the US, Portugal, Norway, Croatia, Greece, and Switzerland.