Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden's Plan To Send Vaccines Overseas Is Proving Difficult To Do
NBC News: White House Vaccine Diplomacy Push Confronts Logistical, Diplomatic Hurdles
The White House commitment to ship millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines abroad has generated diplomatic and logistical challenges for administration officials to untangle as more countries seek U.S. assistance to overcome dire vaccine shortages. Since President Joe Biden announced this month that 80 million shots would be shipped abroad by the end of June, the White House has yet to send out any of the doses because of a variety of hurdles from logistical to regulatory. In the meantime, infections are surging in countries from Haiti to Japan, which struggle with organizational challenges and have only a small fraction of the doses they need. (Pettypiece, 5/28)
Stat: How A Single Pfizer Decision Disrupted The Covid Vaccine Rollout
Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines arrive in an insulated box, tightly packed with dry ice, roughly double the size of a carry-on suitcase. Fully loaded, it weighs about 80 pounds. Unremarkable as it may be, this rectangular package helps explain the considerable obstacles in rolling out Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. The large box also represents how the pharma behemoth rebuffed the federal government, creating public health setbacks but greater profits. (Goldhill and Cohrs, 5/28)
The Wall Street Journal: FDA, J&J Near Deal For Covid-19 Vaccine Production At Baltimore Plant
The Food and Drug Administration and vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.15% expect to announce within days that contamination problems at a Covid-19 vaccine plant in Baltimore are resolved, clearing the way for millions more doses to become available. Vaccine production at the plant run by contract manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions Inc. EBS 0.61% was halted after unsanitary conditions led to contamination of J&J vaccines. The facility made vaccine substance and finished vaccine doses for J&J and AstraZeneca AZN 0.62% PLC. Emergent chief executive Robert Kramer told a House committee last week that the company had produced enough of a key ingredient to yield more than 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine. (Burton, 5/27)
