The SUN HK : BioNTech says its vaccine is safe, leak happened during transport

28 March 2021

By The SUN

BioNTech says problems were caused by environmental factors during shipment

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech has said that initial investigations showed that the packaging defects found in a batch of vaccines it shipped to Hong Kong were not caused by a system fault, but by environmental factors during the long journey to their destination.

A government statement released on Saturday night said health officials had received a report of the initial findings which indicated that the leak, cracks or dirt found in the vials containing the vaccine happened during shipment.

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The probe, jointly conducted by BioNTech and Fosun Pharma, its distributor in Greater China, also found that there is no risk to product safety. However, they are expected to give a more detailed report in a week’s time.

According to the government statement, a random sample testing of the other vaccine doses delivered to Hong Kong did not show any issue of vaccine leakage.

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This could indicate that BioNTech jabs, including those to be given to people who are up for their second dose, could resume soon.

Hong Kong and Macau had suspended giving the BioNTech vaccines on Wednesday after the problems were reported from batch 210102. Another batch, labeled 210104 and was unused, was also put on hold pending investigation.

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By that time, more than 150,000 people in Hong Kong had already received their first dose of the vaccine.

Vaccine record showing the jab administered came from the questioned batch

More than 1.3 million doses of BioNTech vaccines from the two batches have so far been shipped to Hong Kong, which ordered a total of 7.5 million doses.

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Meanwhile, no new Covid-19 case was reported in Hong Kong for the second day running. Only one infection was reported, involving a 24-year-old woman who just arrived from Indonesia.

Yesterday, the first zero local infection in more than four months was reported.

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However, reports say it is not likely that no new case will be reported again tomorrow, as Baptist University has reported on its Facebook page that a social science student had come down with the coronavirus.