Japan’s health minister says Okinawa vaccine contaminants are likely to come from a needle stick

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TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Japan’s health minister said on Tuesday it was highly likely that COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) in southern Okinawa prefecture would find foreign matter in the southern Okinawa prefecture when the needles got into the roads.

Some Moderna shots stopped temporarily in Okinawa on Sunday after discovering strange materials in vials and syringes. The health ministry said the rear needles could have been inserted incorrectly into the vials, breaking pieces of the rubber stopper.

“Whatever the reason (for the foreign issue) we have heard that there are no security issues or others,” Health Minister Norihisa Tamura told reporters, adding that it was not uncommon for foreign material enter a vial with other vaccines.

“We will continue to collect information and report on it,” he added.

Japan is facing its biggest wave of COVID-19 infections to date during the pandemic, driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

A race to increase inoculations has been hampered by delays in imported vaccines and the discovery of contaminants in some doses of Moderna that led to the suspension of three batches last week.

Taro Kono, the minister in charge of the inoculation campaign, said on Tuesday that he wanted to speed up vaccine shipments to municipalities that had been forced to end reserves due to shortages.

The government is considering when and how to give booster shots that may be needed to maintain immunity to the virus, but is now focusing on completing the first two shots for the public, Kono told reporters.

(This story was re-corrected to correct “where” to “were” in the first paragraph.)

Report by Mari Saito and Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Edited by Richard Pullin

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