EU to return millions of J&J doses it imported from Africa
The European Union will be returning some 20 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine that were imported from a plant in South Africa, and the shots filled and finished there will no longer leave the African continent.
African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa, who heads the regional bloc's COVID-19 Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, told reporters Thursday that the decision was made at a meeting last week between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
![PHOTO: Vials of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine move along a conveyor belt at Aspen Pharmacare's plant in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on March 29, 2021.](https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/johnson-johnson-vaccine-vials-south-africa-file-ap_hpEmbed_20210903-083400_3x2_992.jpg)
Johnson & Johnson's South African partner, Aspen Pharmacare, has a contract to import the drug substance for the one-dose vaccine from the American pharmaceutical giant and then package them -- the so-called fill-and-finish process -- at its facility in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
"All the vaccines produced at Aspen will stay in Africa and will be distributed to Africa," Masiyiwa said at a press conference Thursday.
The decision came amid criticism of the arrangement, with the World Health Organisation's director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, saying last month that he was "stunned" that vaccines will be shipped from Africa to Europe. Just 3% of people in Africa, the world's second-largest, second-most populous continent, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In comparison, 57% of people are fully vaccinated in the European Union and 52% in the United States, according to the WHO.