The Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine doses packaged at the Aspen plant in the Eastern Cape will stay in Africa, and those doses already shipped to Europe, will be returned.

This is according to AU special envoy Strive Masiyiwa who this week revealed the arrangement, whereby J&J was shipping Covid-19 vaccine doses from South Africa to Europe, had been suspended.

He says J&J had shipped about 20-million doses to Europe and the halting of the shipments was partly due to interventions by President Cyril Ramaphosa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Masiyiwa says Africa’s Covid-19 vaccination drive will receive a boost due to the new arrangement.

Aspen has confirmed that as many as 225 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be produced at its Eastern Cape facility annually and distributed across Africa.