COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&M Research Center is training workers to produce two new COVID-19 vaccination candidates.
A&M scientists at the National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing are training workers to rapidly make vaccines that can also be approved and distributed in a timely manner.
The four-person training team has condensed a three-week intensive hands-on training into a seven-day program due to the increased need by the ongoing pandemic.
“We really just pump a lot of info into these folks, diverse backgrounds, military veterans, undergrads, some of them are grads at A&M” Jenny Ligon, Assistant Director for Workforce Development said
The team has trained more than 200 people in the last nine months. This training is not only limited to helping manufacture the Novavax vaccine here but can be applied to other vaccines as well.
As of now, three vaccines were approved by the United States for usage: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were approved earlier this year and have since been distributed over 200 million times according to recent numbers by the Biden Administration.
Earlier this month, Johnson & Johnson distributions were put on pause after small instances of blood clots were confirmed in those who received it. An announcement on whether to continue distributing the vaccine or not should be made soon.