HONG KONG (AP) – Hong Kong suspended use of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday after its Chinese distributor informed the city that a batch had defective bottle caps.
The city government said the suspension was immediate as distributor Fosun Pharma and BioNTech, the German company that created the vaccine with US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, investigated the matter.
According to the statement, BioNTech and Fosun Pharma have found no reason to believe the product is unsafe. However, vaccines will be stopped as a preventive and safety measure.
Defective caps were found on vaccines in batch number 210102. No vaccine batch, 210104, will be administered either.
Macau also said Wednesday that residents would not receive Pfizer vaccines from the affected batch.
BioNTech and Fosun Pharma could not be reached for comment immediately.
All Hong Kong community centers that administer the Pfizer vaccine have temporarily suspended vaccines and residents who have already made appointments by Wednesday do not need to go to the centers, the government said.
The suspension of Jab Pfizer means that the only vaccine currently offered to residents is China’s Sinovac vaccine. The two vaccines are the only ones offered to Hong Kong residents.
German expatriate Jannis Partsafas was among a group of people who were shot by Pfizer before the suspension.
“I got vaccinated this morning at 8.30am before the news of the vaccine suspension was published and I heard the news when I was on my way home,” said Partsafas, 32, who works in the industry. of sporting goods.
“I’m not very concerned about safety, but I’m concerned that this could mean more people rejecting the option of getting vaccinated in Hong Kong that would affect the herd’s immunity and the removal of social distancing measures,” he said.
Some residents who had appointments Wednesday morning lined up in front of a community center that administered Pfizer vaccines in the city’s Sai Ying Pun neighborhood around 10:30 p.m. They finally left the center when it became clear that no vaccines would be given.
On Tuesday at 8 p.m., 403,000 people received vaccines in the city, of which 150,200 had received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, compared to 252,800 who had taken the Sinovac outbreak.
–
This story has been corrected to state that the defective batch number is 210102.