The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services reports that, out of an abundance of caution, vaccine providers in the state have been asked to pause all use of the single dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine immediately, in accordance with a joint announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
What this means is that all upcoming appointments with the J&J vaccine are being canceled in Alaska because the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is reviewing six cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in women aged 18-48 years after the vaccination with the J&J vaccine. Symptoms began 6-13 days following the vaccination. Anyone who was scheduled to receive the J&J vaccine in Alaska this week should be aware that their appointment will be canceled or postponed.
Dan Nelson, Kenai Peninsula Borough Emergency Manager spoke to KSRM, “The Kenai Borough is going to do the same thing and follow suit with the CDC recommendations on pausing the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We really defer to the state health department and CDC for guidance on doing some of these things. Our role was to help provision this and make sure the logistics are taken care of. That being said, the Borough is going to pause those vaccines. We do have a clinic coming up this weekend, I believe, that’s now going to be paused as we wait and see what the outcome is and what their recommendation is.”
Nelson talks on if he’s experienced difficulty as a result of the decision, “There have been a good amount of vaccine availability provided to us so the pausing of the Johnson & Johnson will certainly throw some difficulties into it because many people were very happy with the single dose administration. as a reminder, the other two vaccines that we have access to, the Pfizer and Moderna are two-dose. So, I think there will be a little bit of adjustment that we’ll need for scheduling and some of those things, but I think it will be relatively minor and still have all of those vaccines available to those who want to switch to another one.”
As of April 12th, there have been 11,178 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses administered in Alaska out of 35,500 doses allocated in the State. The vaccine was delivered to a number of sites in Alaska, including pharmacies, outpatient clinics, federally qualified health centers and local public health authorities.