At least 87 times in recent months, a fitness professional has given a child the dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Fortunately, none resulted in a serious medical problem, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But it shows the challenge of offering a vaccine that comes in doses from other companies, some that require dilution and some that don’t. Last week’s resolution to upload new COVID-19 boosters for everyone over the age of 12 adds another layer of complexity.
Add to that the new monkeypox vaccines, which have a control formula that most providers haven’t used before, and the start of the annual flu vaccination season: administering vaccines can be tricky.
“There’s a choice of error,” said Dr. Kelly Moore, executive director of Immunize. org, which educates medical professionals about U. S. vaccine recommendations. UU. ” These mistakes are not necessarily dangerous, but they will most likely happen due to the lack of wisdom of new products. “
According to the CDC’s VAERS reporting system, 87 dosing errors were made when administering a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a child under the age of five, accounting for 18% of the errors reported with this vaccine in this age group, yet a fraction of the total 890,000 injections administered.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said there is no evidence of “large-scale errors,” but he is confident the Food and Drug Administration “is well aware” of the problem.
“I think the systems continue to work effectively, but I know the FDA continues to monitor this very closely,” he said at a white house briefing Tuesday.
The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were available since last June for younger children, but one of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines requires dilution.
In addition to clear labeling, brands distinguish COVID-19 vaccines through other colors for vial caps.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is available in gray for those 12 and older, orange for children five to 11 years old, and brown caps for young children over 6 months. Companies also have a dosage for adultswhich requires dilution in a purple lid. Moderna vaccines come in the form of a red cap, a blue cap with a violet label, and a blue lid with a magenta label.
Labels and colored caps can help, but now there are so many other doses and vials that it’s hard to stand firm, Dr. Brown said. Grace Lee, professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and associate medical director at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. . .
The labeling issues “compromise our ability to deliver vaccines,” said Lee, who is also chairman of a federal advisory committee that reviewed vaccines last week. with other time periods between doses, it’s a challenge. “
This is especially true now that Pfizer is another gray cap for its new bivalent retirement, said Michael Cohen, founder and president emeritus of the Institute for Safe Drug Practices, a nonprofit that works to prevent drug errors.
“It’s very confusing,” he said. Pfizer’s bivalent booster “is so different from the gray label that exists lately. “
Another advisory committee member, Dr. Matthew Daley, said at last week’s assembly that he had heard of families refusing to get vaccinated and then learned that their children were getting the dose.
“The more that happens, the more likely we are to lose confidence in the program,” said Daley, a senior clinical researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Health Research Institute.
One practice is to check patient data and the vaccine label 3 times before administering an injection, Moore said. But it is less difficult to detect an error when there are other colors of caps. Vaccines.
Now that Pfizer has two injections with gray plugs, Moore said some health care providers will want to replace those systems.
“We call Pfizer’s product for adults and teens the ‘gray cap,'” he said. “We want to modify ours to distinguish monovalent vaccines from the number one series of bivalent booster vaccines. “
Pfizer’s label may also be clearer, Cohen argued. In addition to the product description, Moderna’s label features a giant gray banner that reads “booster dose only,” according to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.
Explicit expiration dates also don’t appear on any of the COVID-19 vaccine labels, Cohen said. Instead, healthcare providers want to look for a batch number or QR code for the expiration date depending on the company.
“Other people touched us to tell us they gave a vaccine that expired because they didn’t see the expiration date,” he said.
Cohen advised pharmacies to look for and print their own expiration date to load on the label when vaccines are administered.
It’s not uncommon for clinics to apply their own methods for confusion and other mistakes, Lee said, since many clinics administer certain vaccines on certain days.
This “means it can be limited according to the day and site, and especially if the volume of patients is low,” he said. “In an ideal world, our task is to make sure we don’t miss opportunities to vaccinate, but those complexities make it difficult to control. “
Daley, of Kaiser Permanente Colorado, said the key to simplification and encouraged vaccine brands to work with the FDA. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said federal agencies are reading methods without reducing the volume of products.
“This is a fear that has been raised,” Walensky said at Tuesday’s White House briefing. “We’re providing a normal amount of education for those who administer the vaccine for precisely that reason. “
The FDA has not yet responded to requests for comment on the influence of the errors or efforts to avoid them.
Meanwhile, fitness experts encourage providers to take more time to administer the correct vaccine to the patient’s right arm.
Patients can also reduce the threat of errors if they become more involved in their care. Health experts say patients can ask to see the label before the pharmacist or nurse administers the vaccine. flu shot on one visit, Moore said.
As a total new generation of COVID-19 vaccines unravels this week, he said it will be key in times of turmoil.
“There are emotions of frustration in everyone,” Moore said. Having grace on both sides is going to be for everyone in the fitness world. “
Contact Weintraub in kweintraub@usatoday. com. Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
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