Mistakes in administering doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine have caused the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to send warnings to more than 6,000 people who may have received lower doses than health officials intended.
From the afternoon of February 28 to the afternoon of March 1, those who arrived at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, received their first dose of vaccine, possibly administering 0.22 milliliters of Pfizer vaccine instead of the 0.3 ml. which the centers recommend. for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a CDPH official said Newsweek.
The 0.22 ml dose is still within the volume considered safe by the CDC, which advised the CDPH that any dose of Pfizer’s vaccine is between 0.15 and 0.3 ml safe. The CDC’s rules mean that the 0.22 ml doses administered at the Oakland Coliseum on February 28 and March 1 are ‘well within’ that safety range.
‘The dosage difference was corrected by staff on site on Monday [March 1] afternoon, and CDPH has implemented additional steps for training and quality assurance as a preventative measure, ‘the CDPH official said.
Although some local media reported that new syringes from Pfizer caused the problem, the CDPH said that was not the case.
“It was caused by human error, and not by syringes,” the CDPH official said.
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The CDPH said it had issued warnings on the two dates in question to about 6,300 individuals who had been vaccinated at the Oakland Coliseum to notify them of the dose problem. According to a copy of the letter provided by the CDPH, the warning applied to those who received vaccinations on 28 February after 16:30 and by 1 March between 08:00 and 15:00.
Those who received COVID-19 vaccine doses during those periods need not take any action because the vaccine doses are administered according to the CDC’s safety guidelines, the letter reads.
“Although the recommended dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is 0.3 ml, the CDC has determined that any dose of 0.15 ml or greater is safe and that the dose should not be repeated to treat people against COVID-19. do not protect, “reads the letter. said. “In this case, some individuals may have received a dose between 0.22 ml and 0.3 ml which is well within the range set out by the CDC, and the dose does not need to be repeated.”
The letter encouraged those who had so far received only one COVID-19 vaccine dose to return after three weeks of the first dose to complete the vaccination process.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is one of three approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use. The vaccines created by Pfizer and Moderna both require two doses, while an FDA-approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine for emergency use last month consists of a single dose.
California health officials have so far reported more COVID-19 infections than any other state in the United States. As of Monday, more than 3.5 million cases had been reported in California since the onset of the pandemic, with more than 54,000 COVID-19-related deaths. across the country. Vaccination data on the CDPH website showed that more than 10.5 million people in California had received a COVID-19 vaccine by the beginning of the week.