Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A military cargo plane with the first shipment from Europe of infant formula to the United States landed at Indianapolis Sunday.

Top baby formula manufacturer recalls top brands of baby formula on February 17. Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:). The closure of Sturgis, Michigan’s manufacturing plant created the greatest infant formula shortages for American families in recent times.

The administration of President Joe Biden is looking to fill empty shelves with 1.5million Nestle infant formulas. Biden used the Cold War-era Defense Production Act last week to boost supplies.

The White House stated that the Sunday aircraft was carrying specialty infant formula weighing 78,000 pounds or 35,380 kilograms.

There’s enough special medical-grade formula formula to make about half a million bottles of that formula. This is about 15% of our national volume for the week,” White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said to Fox News Sunday.

Tom Vilsack, Agriculture Secretary, was present to welcome the aircraft.

Abbott, America’s largest supplier of infant powder formula, has closed its Michigan facility following four cases of bacteria in infants. This is in addition to the fact that it was causing a severe shortage of infant formula among other manufacturers.

Robert Ford, Abbott’s Chief Executive, apologized on Sunday for the shortage of formula and said that he would fix it. He also stated that the plant will reopen in the first week June and products would need to be available for purchase within six to eight weeks.

“We’re sorry to every family we’ve let down since our voluntary recall exacerbated our nation’s baby formula shortage,” Ford wrote in an opinion column published in the Washington Post.

Ford claimed that while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inquiry did not uncover any link between the Michigan formula production facility and four instances of sick children, it found evidence of bacteria.