USFDA to allow export of AstraZeneca COVID vaccine lots made at Emergent facility

The health agency said it does not, however, expect to make any more decisions on the remaining lots of the vaccine manufactured at Emergent's Baltimore facility.

Last year, the FDA halted operations at the plant, which was producing vaccines for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, following a discovery that one vaccine was contaminated with material used in the other.

Read also: USFDA flags problems at factory making Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine

There have been concerns over the shelf life of AstraZeneca's vaccines reaching the world's poorest nations for distribution, Reuters reported on Wednesday. 

Many lots were reaching with only a few months, and sometimes weeks, before their use-by date, making the vaccination process overly chaotic. Some countries have had to destroy expired doses, including Nigeria which dumped up to 1 million AstraZeneca vaccines in November.

In 2020, AstraZeneca picked Emergent to help produce 300 million doses of the British drugmaker's potential COVID-19 vaccine, which is still not authorized for use in the United States.