Mark for the vaccination program on the clothing of staff outside a community vaccination center administering the BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine introduced by Fosun Pharma in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, March 17, 2021.
Chan Long Hei | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Shares of Chinese Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group fell after Hong Kong and Macao announced on Wednesday that they were discontinuing BioNTech Covid vaccinations.
Fosun Pharma, BioNTech’s partner in the development and distribution of the Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine in China, notified the cities of a packaging defect in batch 210102 of the vaccine.
Hong Kong and Macao have said they are suspending German vaccinations as a precautionary measure.
The cities said BioNTech and Fosun Pharma are investigating the cause of the defect on the ampoule and added that there is currently no reason to doubt the safety of the vaccine.
Macao said all its messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccinations belong to the group concerned. Hong Kong said it would also suspend vaccinations from batch 210104 until the investigation was completed.
Shares in Fosun Pharma listed in Hong Kong fell 4.83% in the city on Wednesday afternoon.
Hong Kong approved the BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in January, while Macao granted special authorization for the import of vaccine at the end of February. Both areas received their first series of shots at the end of February.
According to data from its global Phase 3 clinical trial, BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine has an effective efficacy of 95% in adults. And real-world data shows ‘very strong’ results from Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid dual-dose vaccine, even after just one shot.
The news comes as countries around the world try to vaccinate their populations in the face of rising Covid cases in most regions.
Worldwide, more than 124 million infections have been reported and Covid’s mortality rate has exceeded 2.7 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.