Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi goes on trial

(Reuters) -Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial on Monday, appearing unwell as the first witnesses took the stand in cases against her of illegally possessing walkie-talkie radios and breaking coronavirus protocols, her lawyer said.

Suu Kyi, 75, faces a slew of charges since being overthrown by the army in a Feb. 1 coup that cut short a decade of tentative democratic reforms and has plunged the Southeast Asian country into chaos.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi seemed not very well but throughout the hearing she seemed quite interested and paid keen attention,” the head of her legal team, Khin Maung Zaw, said in a statement after the day of hearings.

Suu Kyi’s supporters say the charges are politically motivated and designed to end the political life of a woman who championed democracy for decades under previous military administrations, much of the time under house arrest.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate faced three cases on Monday at the specially built court in the capital Naypyidaw, where she had already appeared at preliminary hearings.

Two of Monday’s cases were linked to the possession of the radios and one under the Natural Disaster Management Law for breaching coronavirus regulations while campaigning for the election she won last November.

She also faces charges of incitement – with hearings set for Tuesday – and more serious charges of violating the Official Secrets Act and under the Anti-Corruption Law.

Former President Win Myint also faces charges of violating the coronavirus measures. Police Major Myint Naing took the stand against him and Suu Kyi. Police Major Kyi Lin then testified in the cases over the radios.

Monday’s hearings lasted more than five hours.

Her legal team have denied any wrongdoing by Suu Kyi and her chief lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, called the most recent corruption charges “absurd”.

‘BOGUS, AND POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’

Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, said in a statement the charges Suu Kyi faced “are bogus, and politically motivated” and “should be dropped, resulting in her immediate and unconditional release”.

The army says it took power by force because Suu Kyi’s party won the election through fraud, an accusation rejected by the previous election commission and international monitors.

Myanmar’s security forces have killed at least 862 people during their crackdown on protests since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an activist group, though the junta disputes the number.

Pro-democracy supporters took to the streets of the main city of Yangon on Monday, some chanting “revolutionary war, we participate,” according to social media posts.

Some activists said they planned to stage a series of strikes and protests on Monday to coincide with the birthday of Che Guevara, a Latin American revolutionary who became an international icon after his death.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Friday that violence was intensifying and condemned the army’s “outrageous” use of heavy weapons.

Bachelet said the junta had shown no willingness to implement a five-point consensus it agreed with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in April to halt violence and start dialogue with its opponents.

In a press release, Myanmar’s junta-led ministry of foreign affairs rejected Bachelet’s statement, questioning the accuracy and impartiality of the report.

“The report neither mentioned nor condemned the acts of sabotage and terrorism committed by the unlawful associations and terrorist groups as well as the sufferings and deaths of the security forces,” it said.

The junta has branded a rival National Unity Government set up by supporters of Suu Kyi as a terrorist group and blamed it for bombings, arson and killings.

Myanmar’s junta-controlled media on Monday accused an ethnic armed group of killing 25 construction workers in the east of the country after abducting a group of 47 people last month.

Reuters was unable to reach the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) for comment on the accusation. The junta spokesman did not answer calls to seek further comment.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Ed Davies and Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Alex Richardson)

Novavax COVID-19 vaccine more than 90% effective in U.S. trial

By Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – Novavax Inc on Monday reported late-stage data from its U.S.-based clinical trial showing its vaccine is more than 90% effective against COVID-19 across a variety of variants of the virus.

The study of nearly 30,000 volunteers in the United States and Mexico puts Novavax on track to file for emergency authorization in the United States and elsewhere in the third quarter of 2021, the company said.

Novavax’s protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate was more than 93% effective against the predominant variants of COVID-19 that have been of concern among scientists and public health officials, Novavax said.

Protein-based vaccines are a conventional approach that use purified pieces of the virus to spur an immune response and vaccines again whooping cough and shingles employ this approach.

During the trial, the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom became the most common variant in the United States, it said.

Novavax also detected variants of COVID-19 first found in Brazil, South Africa and India among its trial participants, Novavax’s head of research and development, Dr. Gregory Glenn, told Reuters.

The vaccine was 91% effective among volunteers at high risk of severe infection and 100% effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of COVID-19. It was roughly 70% effective against COVID-19 variants that Novavax was unable to identify, Glenn said.

“Practically speaking, it’s very important that the vaccine can protect against a virus that is wildly swinging around” in terms of new variants, Glenn said.

Novavax said the vaccine was generally well tolerated among participants. Side effects included headache, fatigue and muscle pain and were generally mild. A small number of participants experienced side effects described as severe.

Novavax remains on track to produce 100 million doses per month by the end of the third quarter of 2021 and 150 million doses per month in the fourth quarter of 2021, the company said.

The Maryland-based company has repeatedly pushed back production forecasts and has struggled to access raw materials and equipment needed to make its vaccine.

However, in a May investor call, Chief Executive Stanley Erck said major manufacturing hurdles have been cleared and that all of its facilities can now produce COVID-19 vaccine at commercial scale.

Erck said that Novavax has begun its regulatory filing in India in partnership with the Serum Institute of India, which is contracted to make Novavax shots.

Erck said his understanding is that SII is no longer constrained by raw materials shortages.

SII had said in March that U.S. restrictions on exports of supplies used for vaccines were limiting its ability to scale up production.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Vaccines effective vs variants despite diminished antibodies; kids may be as contagious as adults

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Vaccines protect against variants despite diminished antibodies

The one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and the two-dose vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech appear to protect against worrisome coronavirus variants despite diminished levels of antibodies that can neutralize the newer versions of the virus, two studies in the journal Nature suggest. The authors of both studies said other immune responses may be compensating. In one study, published on Wednesday, researchers experimented with blood from people who had received the J&J vaccine two months earlier. Compared to their levels of neutralizing antibodies against the virus that was circulating early in the pandemic, levels of neutralizing antibodies against variants first identified in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and California were about three-fold lower. However, the researchers observed other “robust” immune activity and cells whose responses against the variants were undiminished. In clinical trials, the researchers noted, the J&J vaccine protected against symptomatic COVID-19 in South Africa and in Brazil, where most cases were caused by the variants. Its effectiveness in these regions raises the possibility that these other immune responses may be contributing to protection, coauthor Dr. Dan Barouch of Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a statement. In a separate study using blood from recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech shots, levels of antibodies that could neutralize concerning variants first identified in India and Nigeria were lower compared to an earlier version of the virus, researchers reported on Thursday. Still, they reported “robust neutralization” of all tested variants. Neutralizing antibodies, the researchers said, do not reflect all potentially protective vaccine responses.

Children with COVID-19 may be as contagious as adults

In a community-based study of COVID-19 patients who were not hospitalized, U.S. researchers found that children and adults with symptoms had similar viral loads, which suggests children can be just as contagious as grownups. “There has been a lot of debate around school openings and about whether children could transmit the virus and we thought this study could help answer some of these questions,” said Dr. Helen Chu of the University of Washington, who coauthored a report published on Friday in JAMA Pediatrics. Her team looked at 123 children and 432 adults with COVID-19 and found that nearly all of the adults had symptoms, compared to about two-thirds of the children. “Overall, people with symptoms had higher virus levels than people without symptoms,” Chu said. “However, when you looked within these groups – those with symptoms or those without – viral load was the same whether you were a child or an adult.” She noted that swab tests were only done once, so researchers cannot be sure they took place when patients’ viral loads were highest. But overall, she said, children in the community with SARS-CoV-2 infection can have virus levels similar to adults and can transmit it to others.

Oral booster vaccine shows promise in animal tests

An experimental “booster” vaccine against COVID-19 that is taken by mouth has yielded promising early results in studies in rats, Israeli researchers said. The oral vaccine, MigVax-101, targets multiple sites on the coronavirus. Along with the spike protein on the surface of the virus, which is the target of currently available vaccines, the oral vaccine also targets two sites on the virus shell, which encapsulates its genetic material. In laboratory experiments, rats that had received two doses of vaccines that targeted the spike protein were given the oral booster. “These rats developed a much higher level of antibodies for neutralizing the disease than did control group rats that received a placebo or a third injection of the (original) vaccine,” said David Zigdon of MIGAL Galilee Research Institute Ltd, who coauthored a report posted on Wednesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. If it is proven safe for humans, an oral vaccine might trigger strong immune responses in the mucosal surfaces of the mouth and upper respiratory tract, which would in turn help block viral entry, the researchers speculated. An oral vaccine could be particularly useful in developing countries because it would avoid the need for distribution of needles and could be self-administered.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Christine Soares; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Heat wave drives U.S. West power prices to highest since February freeze

(Reuters) – Extreme heat expected to blanket the U.S. West next week caused power prices for Monday to soar to their highest since the February freeze when natural gas pipelines and wind turbines froze in Texas leaving millions without power.

High temperatures will reach the low 90s F (about 34 C) in Los Angeles on Monday-Wednesday, which is about 20 degrees higher than the city’s normal high for this time of year, according to AccuWeather forecasts.

Last summer, a heat wave in August forced California utilities to impose rotating blackouts that left over 400,000 homes and businesses without power for up to 2-1/2 hours when energy supplies ran short.

The group responsible for North American electric reliability has already warned that California is the U.S. region most at risk of power shortages this summer because the state increasingly relies on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar, and as climate change causes more extreme heat events, drought and wildfires across the U.S. West.

Power traded on Friday for Monday delivery jumped to $151 per megawatt hour (MWh) at Palo Verde in Arizona and $95 in SP-15 in Southern California, their highest since the February freeze caused prices across the country to soar.

In addition to soaring power prices, gas for the rest of 2021 in California has traded at its highest in years on expectations an extreme drought in the U.S. West will cut hydropower supplies and force the state to rely more on gas-fired power plants this summer.

That would make it tough for California to reduce carbon dioxide emissions this year and shows how difficult it would be for the most-populous U.S. state to keep the lights on if it starts shutting gas-fired plants in the coming years as it moves toward getting all electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Biden to route U.S. border wall funds to military and construction site clean up

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration will return more than $2 billion in funds allotted under his predecessor Donald Trump to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to the military and devote other remaining money to construction site clean up, the White House budget office said on Friday.

The move will return funds to 66 military projects spanning 11 states, three U.S. territories and 16 countries, the White House said in a related fact sheet. The projects include $79 million to renovate a U.S. military school in Germany and $9 million for a firing range in Indiana.

Trump, a Republican, made the wall a signature part of his presidency, saying it was needed to stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling. During his four years in office, Trump secured about $15 billion for the project, including $10 billion in redirected U.S. military funds.

Biden, a Democrat, issued an executive order on Jan. 20 – his first day in office – that paused wall construction, saying “a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

The Biden administration said on Friday that it would use its legal authority to stop any new border wall construction while calling on Congress to redirect existing resources to technology-based border security.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Thursday that his state would build its own border wall, but whether he has the resources and legal authority to do that remains unclear. Abbott and other Republicans have criticized Biden in recent months for rolling back Trump restrictions as the number of migrants arriving at the border has reached the highest monthly levels in two decades.

After Congress declined to provide money that Trump had requested for wall construction, his administration redirected funds appropriated by lawmakers for other purposes in order to pay for the project. Democrats accused Trump at the time of exceeding his power as president.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

China brands COVID-19 lab-leak theory as ‘absurd,’ Blinken urges transparency

By David Brunnstrom, Tom Daly and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the need for cooperation and transparency over the origins of COVID-19 in a call with Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on Friday and raised other contentious topics, including China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Yang, China’s top diplomat, expressed to Blinken Beijing’s serious concern that some people in the United States were spreading the “absurd story” about the coronavirus escaping from a Wuhan laboratory, Chinese state media said.

Yang, head of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of China’s ruling Communist Party, also told Blinken that Washington should handle Taiwan-related issues “carefully and appropriately,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The call came ahead of a G7 summit in Britain attended by U.S. President Joe Biden that is expected to be dominated by Washington-led efforts to counter China’s growing influence.

The world’s two largest economies are deeply at odds over issues ranging from trade and technology to human rights and the coronavirus. Washington should work with Beijing to put ties “back on track,” Yang said.

Yang, who had a fiery exchange with Blinken in Alaska in March during the Biden administration’s first high-level meeting with its Chinese counterparts, said Beijing firmly opposed what he called “abominable actions” over the pandemic, which he said were being used to slander China, CCTV said.

The State Department said the diplomats also discussed North Korea policy and that Blinken expressed U.S. concerns over the deterioration of democratic norms in Hong Kong and what Washington describes as the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region.

Blinken also called on China to stop its pressure campaign against Taiwan and to release “wrongfully detained” U.S. and Canadian citizens, it said in a statement.

‘RESPECT FACTS AND SCIENCE’

The State Department said the discussion on North Korea – an issue on which the United States is keen for more Chinese action to press its ally and neighbor to give up its nuclear weapons – focused on the need for Beijing and Washington “to work together for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

It said the two diplomats also continued discussions on shared global challenges, including Iran and Myanmar, and the climate crisis.

“Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, the Secretary stressed the importance of cooperation and transparency regarding the origin of the virus, including the need for WHO Phase 2 expert-led studies in China,” it said, referring to the World Health Organization.

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank, said that although the agenda included potential areas of cooperation, the conversation appeared dominated by contentious issues.

She said Yang’s call for Washington to work with Beijing to put ties “back on track” indicated China was still putting the onus on the United States for the problems in the relationship.

“That’s a non-starter, but demonstrates that the Chinese are sticking to their tried-and-true diplomatic approaches, even though they are not successful.”

A report on the origins of COVID-19 by a U.S. government national laboratory concluded the hypothesis of a viral leak from a Wuhan lab was plausible and deserved further investigation, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday.

“We urge the United States to respect facts and science, refrain from politicizing the issue … and focus on international cooperation in the fight against the pandemic,” Yang said.

His comments on Taiwan followed a visit to the Chinese-claimed island last weekend by three U.S. senators on a U.S. military aircraft. They met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and announced the donation to Taiwan of 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, drawing a sharp rebuke from China’s defense ministry.

In addition to coinciding with Biden’s first overseas trip as president to attend the G7 summit, the call comes as Washington has been pushing policies to address challenges from China.

In the past eight days, Biden updated an executive order banning U.S. investment in companies linked to China’s military and rolled out steps aimed at China to shore up U.S. supply chains. His trade representative Katherine Tai held a call with Taiwan, the Pentagon wrapped up a China policy review, and the Senate passed a sweeping package of China-focused legislation.

Eric Sayers, a visiting fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said all that amounted to good timing for the administration to have an exchange with Beijing.

“The White House should feel more confident taking these calls and letting Beijing run down their stale talking points,” Sayers said.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Doina Chiacu, David Brunnstrom and Michael Martina in Washington; Writing by Tom Daly; Editing by Alex Richardson, Mark Heinrich, Angus MacSwan, Paul Simao and Daniel Wallis)

Spanish rescuers search sea for missing toddler after girl found dead

By Borja Suarez and Emma Pinedo

TENERIFE, Spain (Reuters) -Spanish rescuers were searching waters off the coast of Tenerife for a one-year-old girl on Friday after a body which was reportedly confirmed to be her six-year-old sister was found weighed down in the ocean to an outpouring of rage and grief on the island.

Their father, Tomas G., is the main suspect in the disappearance of Olivia, 6, and Anna, 1, after failing to return them to their mother as agreed at the end of April. He is also missing.

Fingerprint checks have confirmed that the body found weighed down in the sea was that of Olivia, according to judicial sources cited by El Pais newspaper.

The family lived on Tenerife, where officials and a few local residents observed a minute of silence in memory of the sisters in front of the main city hall and outside other official buildings on the Canary Islands.

“All Spain is shocked, all our support for the families whose pain is absolutely unbearable and unimaginable, all our rejection of sexist violence, the vicarious violence that some still deny in our country,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday during a visit to Costa Rica.

The body of the 6-year-old, which authorities said was likely that of Olivia, was found on Thursday afternoon at a depth of 1,000 meters inside a sports bag tied to an anchor, near where her father’s boat was drifting.

Another empty sports bag was also found next to them, a court statement said.

Authorities were about to call off the maritime search earlier this week when they found personal belongings of the father at sea.

On the streets of Tenerife people mourned the girls.

“Every mother and grandmother feels the greatest sorrow, mainly for her (the girls’ mother)… It’s as if they were our own daughters or granddaughters,” said local resident Maria Victoria.

Spain’s left-wing government has put women’s rights at the top of its political agenda and sought to combat prevailing macho attitudes.

In Seville, a former boyfriend of Rocio Caiz, 17, was arrested after he allegedly confessed to killing her and cutting up her body.

Almost 1,100 women have been killed by partners or ex-partners since a register was created in 2003, shortly before a gender violence law was approved, while some 39 children have been killed during attacks on their mothers since 2013.

(Reporting by Borja Suarez in Tenerife, Emma Pinedo and Cristina Galan in Madrid; Graham Keeley writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Alistair Bell)

Biden restores $929 million for California high-speed rail withheld by Trump

By Derek Francis, David Shepardson and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -The Biden administration late on Thursday restored a $929 million grant for California’s high-speed rail that then-President Donald Trump revoked in 2019.

Trump had pulled funding for a high-speed train project in the state hobbled by extensive delays and rising costs that he dubbed a “disaster.” Trump repeatedly clashed as president with California on a number of policy fronts, prompting the state to file more than 100 lawsuits against the Republican Trump administration.

Democratic President Joe Biden strongly supports high-speed rail and has vowed to ensure the United States “has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world.”

Biden wants to dramatically increase funding for passenger rail networks, and in April touted high-speed trains that could eventually travel almost as fast as airplanes.

Federal Railroad Administration Deputy Administrator Amit Bose said Friday the agreement follows “intensive negotiations between the parties and reflects the federal government’s ongoing partnership in the development of high-speed rail.”

California’s lawsuit claimed the Transportation Department lacked legal authority to withhold the $929 million the administration of former President Barack Obama allocated a decade ago but had remained untapped.

“The Biden Administration’s restoration of nearly $1 billion for California’s high-speed rail is great news for our state and our nation,” U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement.

The parties agreed to restore the grant within three days, according to the settlement agreement.

The funding restoration occurs as the Biden administration tries to hammer out an infrastructure spending deal with lawmakers.

California’s system, which is billed by the state as the first U.S. high-speed rail project, is estimated to cost from $69 billion to $99.8 billion and aims to be completed in the 2030s.

Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom said the funding restoration will “move the state one step closer to getting trains running in California as soon as possible.”

California voters approved the initial $10 billion bond for the project in 2008, and $3.5 billion in federal money was allocated two years later. California previously received $2.5 billion.

Trump had threatened — but ultimately did not see the return of the $2.5 billion.

California State Treasurer Fiona Ma noted in a letter Monday that the Obama administration had allocated $10.5 billion for high-speed rail projects in 2009 and 2010 and that there are still no operational U.S. high-speed rail lines.

“To be clear, a repeat effort that spends billions without getting any new lines operational after another decade will be the death of high-speed rail in America,” Ma wrote to congressional leaders.

“There is simply no way the public will continue to support such an agenda without seeing tangible results.”

(Reporting by Derek Francis and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Mark Potter, Christopher Cushing and Jonathan Oatis)

New Israeli government seals coalition deals as Netanyahu era approaches its end

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The new Israeli government set to end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure as prime minister signed its final coalition agreements on Friday, pointedly including term limits.

The coalition of parties from far-right to left is expected to focus mostly on economic and social issues rather than risk exposing internal rifts by trying to address major diplomatic issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, will be succeeded on Sunday by a coalition that includes for the first time a party from Israel’s Arab minority.

Under a power-sharing agreement, Naftali Bennett, of the ultra-nationalist Yamina (Rightwards) party, will serve as prime minister for two years.

Bennett on Friday said the coalition “brings to an end two and a half years of political crisis,” although it was unclear how long the coalition’s disparate elements would hold together. He will then hand over to Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party.

Among the agreements outlined by parties in what Lapid described as a “unity government” are:

* Limiting the prime minister’s term of office to two terms, or eight years.

* An infrastructure push to include new hospitals, a new university and a new airport.

* Passing a two-year budget to help stabilize the country’s finances – the prolonged political stalemate has left Israel still using a pro-rated version of a base 2019 budget that was ratified in mid-2018.

* Maintaining the “status-quo” on issues of religion and state, with Bennett’s Yamina party to have a veto. Possible reforms include breaking up an ultra-Orthodox monopoly on overseeing which foods are kosher, and decentralizing authority over Jewish conversions.

* An “overall plan for transportation” in the Israeli- occupied West Bank.

* A general goal to “ensure Israel’s interests” in areas of the West Bank under full Israeli control.* Allocating more than 53 billion shekels ($16 billion) to improve infrastructure and welfare in Arab towns, and curbing violent crime there.

* Decriminalizing marijuana and moving to regulate the market.

($1 = 3.2529 shekels)

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. FDA asks J&J to discard 60 million vaccine doses made at Baltimore plant

(Reuters) -The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has asked Johnson & Johnson to discard 60 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine manufactured at a problem-plagued Baltimore factory, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

A further 10 million J&J doses would be allowed to be distributed with a warning that there was no guarantee contract manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions Inc had followed proper practices, the newspaper said.

Without disclosing or confirming the number of vaccine doses, the FDA said in a news release that it had authorized two batches of the vaccine for use, that multiple other batches were not suitable for use and that others were being evaluated.

The agency said it was not yet ready to authorize Emergent’s plant for manufacturing the J&J vaccine. Production of J&J’s vaccine at the Baltimore site was halted by U.S. authorities in April and J&J was put in charge of manufacturing at the plant.

J&J did not have an immediate comment. The FDA declined to comment beyond its statement.

The FDA said its decision allows the J&J doses to be used in the United States or exported. It said that for J&J and Emergent to export these shots, they must agree that the FDA can share information on the batches with the regulatory authorities of the countries in which the vaccine may be used.

Last month, Emergent Chief Executive Robert Kramer said it was his understanding that there are 100 million doses of J&J’s one-shot vaccine ready for FDA review and that regulators had begun the review process.

The April halt followed the discovery that ingredients from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, also being produced at the plant at the time, contaminated a batch of J&J’s vaccine. AstraZeneca’s shot is no longer being made there.

An FDA inspection also turned up a long list of sanitary problems and bad manufacturing practices at the Emergent plant.

Separately, Europe’s drug regulator said on Friday that batches of J&J COVID-19 vaccine made for the region around the time the contamination issues were revealed at the Baltimore plant would, as a precaution, not be used.

The European Medicines Agency did not say how many shots were affected, but Reuters has reported it involves millions of doses, making it harder for J&J to meet a target of delivering 55 million to Europe by end of June.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy and Ankru Bannerjee in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Bill Berkrot)