By The SUN
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| Vaccination centers put up suspension notice after giving jabs to hundreds of people |
The government has cancelled bookings for the BioNTech jabs
at all 21 community vaccination centers today “until further notice” due to a
defect with the vial seals of batch 210102 of the vaccine, which it has
procured for residents.
The government said it took the step after being alerted
this morning by Fosun Industrial Co. Ltd, which distributes the vaccine in
Greater China, about the packaging issue.
In a statement, the government said: “So far, BioNTech and Fosun Pharma have no reason to believe that there is a risk to product safety. However, for the sake of prudence, vaccination of the batch 210102 should be suspended until the investigation is completed.
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“Meanwhile, batch 210104, another batch of BioNTech vaccines procured by Hong Kong, should also be put on hold and not be administered. This is a precautionary measure to continuously ensure vaccine safety.”
In an interview with reporters, Secretary for Food and Health Dr Sophia Chan, tried to allay public concerns.
“Fosun Pharma has told us that they have no reason to say the drugs now have safety risks. But they found some packaging defects, so they need to investigate it,” she said.
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Director of Health Dr Constance Chan explained that the suspension order was given after several incident reports concerning the vaccine, including 8 on cracks in containers, 22 cases of leakage due to extra pressure on the vials, 16 on loose caps and 8 on dirty marks on the bottles.
But she said those who had jabs from the questioned batch should not worry as staff followed strict protocols when administering the vaccines.
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| It appears all BioNTech jabs given so far had come from the questioned batch |
The health officials said 150,000 people had their first dose of the vaccine from batch 210102, which was the first to be administered to those who opted to take the BioNTech jab.
The batch which arrived on Feb 28th contained 585,000 doses. The other, batch 210104, had 758,000 doses.
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The Department of Health said it will hold an urgent meeting with Fosun Pharma today to obtain further details of the incident and discuss follow-up measures.
Meanwhile, those who have made appointments to receive BioNTech vaccination
from today onwards need not go to CVC for vaccination, the statement added.
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| More than a million doses of the BioNTech vaccines have been delivered to HK |
Before the announcement was issued, hundreds of people with appointments had gone to vaccination centers across the city. The first on the queues were given jabs, but those who came later found the vaccination centers closed, with notice board announcing the cancellation of their bookings.
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As no advance notice was given, some said they waited for at least an hour to get word on whether their vaccination would push through.
Most, if not all centres had reportedly administered the vaccine to hundreds of people before the suspension order got out.
At the vaccination centre in Sai Wan Ho, 53 people had been injected by the time the suspension order arrived between 8am and 9am. In Kwun Tong, medics had inoculated more than 140 people before they were ordered to stop, according to local reports.
Another report on social media said the center in Tsuen Wan was still giving the BioNTech jabs at around 9:30am.
Those who have appointments for tomorrow said they did get an SMS advising them to wait for further notice.
Not a few who have received the jab have expressed alarm on seeing from their vaccination records that the dose they got was from the questioned batch.
“The jab I got on Saturday was from this batch!”, said one, who accompanied her post with a sad face emoji.
In response, another said: “Oh no, my first jab on Monday was from this batch, too.”
The controversy is likely to cause a further blow to the government’s effort to convince residents to get vaccinated, with just about 6% of all qualified residents having gone for their jabs so far.
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