Fairfax County halts use of J&J vaccine
Updated April 14: Fairfax County will not administer the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine until further notice.
That announcement follows the April 13 recommendation by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to pause all J&J vaccinations while health officials investigate a rare side effect.
The CDC reported six U.S. residents developed a severe type of blood clot after getting the one-dose J&J vaccine. Two of them died. The Virginia Department of Health and the CDC later confirmed one of those deaths involved a 45-year-old Virginia woman who had experienced a stroke-like event 12 days after receiving the J&J vaccine at a school.
“In Virginia, we will cease all Johnson & Johnson vaccines until this investigation is complete,” Dr. Danny Avula, the state’s vaccination coordinator, announced.
“While this action limits the amount of available vaccine, its impact on the Fairfax Health District is minimal since the Fairfax County Health Department and its partners have primarily been using the Pfizer vaccine for the past several months,” the county’s health department states.
“No clinics or appointments will be affected. Fairfax County did not receive any J&J vaccine this week, and we were not expecting any next week,” the department states. “A small amount of J&J vaccine remaining from last week and allocated for this week will be substituted with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to avoid any cancellations at our Health Department sites.”
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The Fairfax County Health Department urges individuals who have received the J&J vaccine and who develop severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination to contact their health care provider.
According to the FDA and CDC, all six Americans who developed severe blood clots after getting the J&J vaccine were women age 18 to 48. Their symptoms appeared six to 13 days after being vaccinated.
In addition to the Virginia death, the other cases were in Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, and North Carolina. There were three additional cases in Europe, and the J&J rollout is being delayed there.
The blood clot, called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, is considered an extremely rare side effect. A total of 6.8 million doses of the J&J vaccine have been administered in the U.S.
Inova Health System also announced it is halting the J&J vaccine at its primary care locations as it waits for further guidance from federal and state health officials. Anyone scheduled to receive the J&J vaccine from an Inova primary care clinic will be contacted to cancel that appointment and will be rescheduled for the Moderna vaccine.
The Inova Stonebridge Vaccination Center, the Inova Vaccine Center at the Inova Center for Personalized Health, and team member vaccine sites have always administered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and will continue to do so.