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Hy-Vee confirmed that staff at one of its Minnesota stores mistakenly diluted a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which was then administered to 62 patients.
The grocery chain, of which three pharmacies in Minnesota are authorized to administer the vaccines as part of a federal program, said the incident happened recently at the Riverfront Hy-Vee Pharmacy in Mankato.
It is said that there was supervision of giving the first dose of the vaccine to 62 patients.
As it states: “Two pharmacy staff used vaccines mixed with a sterile water injection diluent – commonly used to dilute injections, rather than the saline solution provided by Pfizer.”
The chain said it had consulted with third-party doctors working on the vaccination process and “received confirmation that there was no cause for medical concern.”
“There are also no patients who have reported any side effects,” he added.
“Once we were made aware of the incident, we began calling the patients who were personally affected,” it continued. “We reached out to the manufacturer and worked with each of the patients on the next steps. We also reported this information to the appropriate regulatory agencies and retrained all of our pharmacy staff at this location.”
“We remain committed to playing an important role in the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine in our local communities.”