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About 500 doses of the precious Moderna coronavirus vaccine have been discarded after an ‘unintentional human error’ in a clinic in Wisconsin. Fifty bottles, each containing ten doses of vaccine, were removed from the refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, about 12 miles (20 km) north of Milwaukee, Friday so that someone could access other items in the refrigerator, according to a statement from attorney Aurora . Health, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The bottles were not returned to the fridge. The error was realized before 12 hours had elapsed, meaning that some of the vaccine doses could still be administered. But the majority had to be thrown away on Saturday, as the vaccine can no longer stand at room temperature.
The Moderna vaccine is sent frozen, and once the chips have been thawed, it can be stored in the fridge for up to 30 days. “We are clearly disappointed and regret that this has happened,” officials from Adv. Aurora Health, which has vaccinated about 17,000 of its employees over the past two weeks, said. Sentinel Magazine. Earlier this month, the Albuquerque Journal reports that a 75-dose load of Pfizer’s vaccine against coronavirus in New Mexico had to be discarded “after a digital device showed it was overheated during transport to a hospital in Clayton.” A spokeswoman for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said it was “probably a malfunction of the digital data logger.” (Read more stories about coronavirus vaccines.)