Massachusetts wasted coronavirus vaccine doses: Why have providers thrown them out?
Massachusetts coronavirus vaccine providers have had to toss vax doses after vials were inadvertently refrozen and because of “medication delivery process issues,” vax providers told the Herald a day after the state revealed where doses have been wasted.
Meanwhile, other providers on Thursday disputed data from the state that showed them wasting doses. These providers said they haven’t wasted a single COVID-19 dose so far.
Of the wasted doses, the Suffolk County House of Correction reported 100 wasted doses. Ten vials of the Moderna vaccine were “spoiled in a case of human error,” a spokesman for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department said.
“The 10 vials, each containing 10 doses of the vaccine, were inadvertently re-frozen by a contract laborer employed by our medical provider, Naphcare,” the spokesman said. “The spoiled vials were not administered to anyone, posing no threat to human life or health.”
The Mass General Brigham system reported 25 wasted doses. Overall, the system has administered more than 143,000 doses.
“A very small number (25) of our overall doses needed to be discarded due to medication delivery process issues,” a spokeswoman said. “These issues are common in pharmacy practice and seen with the administration of most medications and include: a cap falling off the syringe in transport, leakage from a syringe in transport or prior to administration, and issues with the rubber stoppers in the vial.
“Staff are continuously educated on how to prevent these rare occurrences from happening,” she added. “We have also implemented processes to ensure there are no wasted doses due to appointment cancellations.”
The state Department of Public Health chart had shown 80 wasted doses at the Hampden County Correctional Center and 100 wasted doses at Carewell Urgent Care in Billerica. Both providers said that data was inaccurate.
“In fact, our department has not wasted one single dose since receiving the first shipment of the vaccine,” said a spokesman for the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department.
A DPH spokeswoman said the Hampden County data was an error.
Shaun Ginter, the CEO of Carewell Urgent Care, said they were disputing the data at the Billerica location.
“We have been making every effort possible to ensure every coronavirus vaccine dose we receive is distributed to a qualified individual,” he said. “In some cases we have gone as far as to transfer doses to different clinic locations to ensure they are administered, which may have caused a reporting glitch. We are currently working with the state to reconcile the data.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3avA22L
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