Forty-two people in Boone County, southwestern West Virginia, who were to receive the coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, were mistakenly injected with an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment, the West Virginia National Guard said Thursday.
None of the 42 recipients have developed any adverse effects so far, the Guard said in a statement. The Guard, who is leading the civil servant for the distribution of vaccines, calls the error a breakdown in the process. ‘
The experimental treatment, a cocktail of antibodies made by Regeneron, is the same as what President Trump received when he was admitted to the hospital in November with Covid-19. It is intended to be administered as an intravenous infusion, not as a direct injection such as the vaccine.
Major General James Hoyer, the adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, said the confusion apparently occurred during the delivery of a consignment of the Regeneron cocktail to a distribution center, where the bottles were in stock. the Modern placed is vaccine. Workers at the center then apparently included the treatment vials in a cargo vaccine to Boone County.
General Hoyer attributed the situation to “some human error” and said that the guard acted quickly as soon as he realized what had happened. “We’ve found a problem, we’re fixing it and we’re moving forward,” he said in a radio interview on Thursday.
No other shipments of the vaccine were affected, the guard said in a statement.
Vials for treatment and the vaccine look somewhat similar, but are clearly labeled, as are the boxes they contain. Both are kept in the fridge before use.
The mistake occurred at a time when record numbers of hospitalizations across the country indicated a greater need than ever before for antibody treatments, which are scarce and expensive, although some stocks sit unused in refrigerators across the country.
West Virginia officials on Thursday reported 1,109 new cases of coronavirus and 20 new deaths. According to the New York Times database, there have been at least 85,334 cases and 1,338 deaths in the state since the pandemic began.