Covid vaccine tampering reports

As the speed of Covid vaccinations accelerates, so do the reports of lost doses. And that’s more than a handful at the end of the day because of a few appointment cancellations. Health officials are trying to contain the waste without slowing down vaccinations.

The incidents range from 335 doses released in Lee County, North Carolina, which were damaged in transit, to nearly 5,000 doses that were wasted in Tennessee in February, resulting in additional federal oversight.

“I certainly lost some sleep because of it for sure,” said Beth Ann Wilmore, director of nursing at Mercy Community Healthcare in Franklin, Tennessee. She manages the Covid vaccine inventory at the nonprofit clinic, which started receiving shipments a month ago.

Clinics like Mercy are used to handling vaccines, but none are as valuable as those at Covid, which have special refrigeration needs.

“I would definitely wake up in the middle of the night wondering how the temperatures were going and thinking, ‘OK, I hope this is good, and that doesn’t give me a flag or anything.'”

Many community health centers receive Moderna vials, which are easier to handle than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but still delicate. The vials last 30 days after coming out of freezing, compared to just about five for Pfizer. But once the seal on the vial is broken, there are only six hours left to use the injections.

So far no waste has taken place at Mercy. But Wilmore has heard horror stories from all over the state.

In nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the local school district received a thousand doses for a teacher immunization event on the last weekend of February. But they were put in an unapproved freezer. The shipment temperature sensor flashed an error code. To be on the safe side, they were advised to throw them all out.

“It hurts my heart,” said Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee’s health commissioner, who revealed one of the biggest reported spikes in deterioration in the country.

She said the losses are painful because the gunfire is “priceless” amid this deadly pandemic. But it’s a risk to have so many places to get vaccinated.

To increase access and equity, there are now more than 700 vaccination sites across Tennessee, with more expected to open as vaccine shipments increase in the coming weeks.

“It definitely increases the level of concern when you have more partners – especially partners who are not under your direct control,” she said.

Even Tennessee’s large urban health departments – which operate independently of the state health department – are having problems.

In Knoxville, a thousand doses were thrown away, apparently mistaken for an associated cargo of dry ice. In Memphis, the county health director resigned after delay in disclosing that nearly 2,500 doses had been allowed to expire on multiple occasions – due to the winter weather and mismanagement at the county pharmacy.

The state has called on staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor vaccine distribution in Shelby County and has stepped up audits for all local health departments in the state.

There is such a chance that the doses will get bad. In West Palm Beach, Florida, power to a portable refrigerator was cut. In Connecticut, a refrigerator door did not close properly, although doses were collected on time in consultation with Moderna.

Health officials have gone to great lengths to avoid wasting doses, such as an impromptu mass vaccination at Nashville homeless shelters after winter storms canceled hundreds of appointments.

Dr Kelly Moore, deputy director of the Immunization Action Coalition, said some deterioration was expected. That’s still well under 1% of doses, even in states like Tennessee and Florida that have shown large losses.

“I would be more worried if I saw reports of zero wasted doses,” Moore said, because then his concern would be a lack of transparency.

“You want to see waste because it means people are paying attention and real world accidents are happening and they are being treated properly,” she said. “You just don’t want to see neglect.”

It is hoped that accidents will be easier to avoid with the newly authorized Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Besides being a single dose, it can last for months in a normal refrigerator.

This story was produced in partnership with Nashville Public Radio, NPR and KHN.