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An employee at a hospital outside of Milwaukee deliberately spoiled more than 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine by removing 57 vials from a pharmacy refrigerator, hospital officials said on Wednesday, as local police said had announced that it was investigating the incident with the assistance of federal authorities.
Launching an internal review on Monday, hospital officials said they were initially “led to believe” the incident was caused by “unintentional human error.” The vials were withdrawn on Friday and most were thrown away on Saturday, with only a few still safe to administer at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, according to an earlier statement from the health system. Each vial contains enough for 10 vaccinations, but can be left at room temperature for only 12 hours.
Two days later, the employee admitted to “intentionally removing the vaccine from the refrigeration,” the system, Aurora Health Care, said in a statement Wednesday evening.
The employee, who has not been identified, has been fired, Aurora Health said. His statement did not address the worker’s motive but indicated that the “competent authorities” had been promptly informed.
Police in Grafton, a village of about 12,000 residents 20 miles north of Milwaukee, said Wednesday night they were investigating with the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration. In a statement, the local police department said it learned of the incident from security services at Aurora Health Care’s head office in Milwaukee. The system serves eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois and includes 15 hospitals and more than 150 clinics, according to its website.
Leonard Peace, an FBI spokesperson in Milwaukee, did not comment on the Bureau’s involvement, but said of the episode, “We are aware of it. The FDA was also aware, said spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo, who also declined to speak about the existence of an investigation. She addressed questions to the hospital.
Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, was scheduled to provide an update on the incident Thursday afternoon.
The tampering will delay the inoculation of hundreds of people, Aurora Health officials said, in a state where 3,170 new cases were reported and 40 people died on Wednesday from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to the Washington Post coronavirus tracking.
“We are more than disappointed that the actions of this person are causing a delay of more than 500 people receiving the vaccine,” the health system said in a statement.
Tara C. Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University and authority on vaccine antipathy, said the incident would prompt medical providers to reassess who has access to vaccines, even among their own employees.
“Hopefully this is a unique case, but I’m sure places will now have to consider whether those who handle the vaccines are trustworthy, in addition to making sure that supplies are under camera surveillance,” he said. she declared.
Security has been paramount in state planning, officials say. When Wisconsin began receiving vaccine shipments earlier this month, the health department did not disclose the eight regional centers receiving the bulk of the materials.
Julie Willems Van Dijk, assistant secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, told a press conference on December 14: “This is a valuable vaccine. We don’t want to create security risks. She said the state consulted the Department of Homeland Security on the plans.
On Thursday, Secretary-designate for Health Andrea Palm said her department had worked with Aurora Health officials as they “investigated the situation, reviewed their processes and implemented improvements.”
“It is disappointing that a vaccine against covid-19 has been wasted in Wisconsin,” she added in a statement to the Washington Post.
The Wisconsin incident comes as states continue to grapple with a bumpy deployment of the first doses of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which were approved less than a month ago and a priority for health workers, residents and long-term care staff. facilities. Distribution so far has lagged well behind federal projections, raising doubts as to whether the outgoing administration will meet its already revised target of 20 million vaccines distributed by the end of the year. year.
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 12.4 million doses of the vaccine had been distributed across the United States, but only 2.6 million had been administered. (This means that only 1 in 125 Americans received the first dose of the vaccine.) Trump administration officials said those numbers were lower than the actual rate of vaccination, which they said would accelerate from the start. next week.
Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, the first two regimens to gain regulatory approval for emergency use, are two-dose protocols with complex logistical requirements. Moderna’s vaccine does not require subarctic temperatures like the Pfizer product does, but it must be kept cold. It can be stored at freezing temperatures for six months, according to the company, and kept under regular refrigerated conditions for 30 days. However, it can be kept at room temperature for only 12 hours and cannot be refrozen once thawed.
Complex storage requirements are among the reasons state officials implore suppliers to quickly administer the vaccine once it is received. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, D, taking to Twitter last week to celebrate the start of Moderna vaccine shipments, said it marked “another step forward in the fight against this pandemic.”
In its initial statement on Monday, Aurora Health said it had successfully vaccinated around 17,000 people in the previous 12 days. His initial examination, he said, found that the 57 vials were simply left out overnight by the employee after being “temporarily removed to access other items.”
The health care system apologized, saying, “We are clearly disappointed and regret that this has happened.”
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