(Bloomberg) -- Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. said it would suspend use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine in Japan after it received reports of foreign particles in the vials from several vaccination sites.

The decision to stop using doses from three separate lots was made after discussion with the country’s health ministry, the Japanese drugmaker said in a statement. Takeda is the local distributor of the vaccine developed by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna. 

There have been no safety concerns tied to the affected vials, and vaccinations using other Moderna shots in Japan will progress as usual, according to the statement. Takeda said it asked Moderna to look into the issue.

A Moderna spokesperson confirmed the halt of some batches in Japan and said it is currently investigating. It believes a manufacturing issue arose at one line of its contract manufacturing site in Spain. 

The suspension of the Moderna doses is similar to the temporary halt in Hong Kong and Macau earlier this year of BioNTech SE’s jab due to a packaging defect. Asian governments have generally been slower in their vaccine rollouts due to more cautious attitude towards the inoculations. 

The situation is not as severe as pauses ordered by regulators, which happened with the Johnson & Johnson shot earlier this year in the U.S. to help draw attention to certain rare side effects. Still, there are concerns that news of temporary vaccination stoppages can erode public confidence in the vaccines, which have been proven effective at preventing serious disease from the coronavirus and seen as the way out of the pandemic. 

Japan has a deal for 100 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine -- half to be delivered this year and half in 2022. Most of the shots are being used for the country’s workplace vaccination program through its largest companies.

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