Officials at a maximum security prison in Iowa gave 77 inmates doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine that were several times more potent than recommended, the Des Moines Register reported.
The incident, which occurred Tuesday, took place at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.
The mother of one prisoner told the Register that according to doctors, her son received a dose that was ‘six times the recommended amount’.
“The prisoners involved have been notified and are being closely monitored by medical personnel. At present, the only side effects experienced by the prisoners are those usually associated with the Pfizer vaccine,” a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections told the newspaper.
It is not clear how the incident happened. Two nurses who delivered the vaccine doses were placed on leave pending an investigation.
The Pfizer vaccine comes in a six-dose vial, which has previously led to mixtures. In Australia, two residents of a nursing home received four times the recommended amount. And in Germany, eight staff in the nursing home each received the recommended dose five times, with several symptoms reporting flu-like.
Similar incidents took place in Israel.
“In these cases, the practitioners forget about the dilution and inject the vaccine concentrate as it is,” Amiram Ariel, head of the Israeli Immunological Society, told Australian broadcaster ABC.
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