112 kids in Va. receive adult dosage of COVID-19 vaccine

A vial of the new children’s dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine (that will supply ten doses, once reconstituted) sits in the foreground as children play in a hospital room waiting to be able to receive the vaccine at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on November 2, 2021. 

 

A pharmacy in Virginia mistakenly gave more than 100 children the adult dosage of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, this isn’t the first occurrence.

“My warning to parents is ask for the orange cap. Demand to see the orange cap,” said one parent, Dasha Hermosilla.

The Virginia Department of Health confirmed 112 children were given the adult dosage of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Loudoun County. Ted Pharmacy in Aldie, Virginia is now banned from administering any COVID vaccines for children and adults after recklessly inoculating kids with the wrong dosage.

Loudoun County Health Department Director Dr. David Goodfriend said the pharmacy “attempted to provide a proper dose” of the adult vaccine to children due to the vials for children not being shipped yet.

“What Ted Pharmacy tried to do is to get the correct dosage of 10 micrograms to kids by giving one-third of that or .1 milliliters of the adult,” he said.

In order to differentiate between the doses, the packaging for Pfizer’s adult vaccine is purple and their vaccine for children ages 5-11 is orange. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the vaccine for children is one-third of the adult vaccine and Pfizer confirmed the adult vaccine shouldn’t be given to young children as that dosage for them is not FDA approved.

“The FDA and the CDC did this very, very, very purposefully. They had the child dosage in different size vials with a different color cap. The dose, the dilution, everything was different. The needles are different so that mistakes wouldn’t happen,” stressed Dr. Natalie Azar.

Instead, clinicians at Ted Pharmacy took it upon themselves to pull the doses from the vials intended for anyone 12 and older. However, this isn’t the only state to make this mistake.

After being unable to book an appointment with a pediatrician, a Florida mom took her five-year-old son to get vaccinated at a Walgreens when the pharmacist gave him an adult vaccine by mistake.

“He said that he was concentrating on my son’s allergies,” said mother, Erin Slutak. “He was more concerned that my son has allergies and he was worried about that as opposed to giving him the proper vaccine.”

In the meantime, health experts have advised parents to continue asking questions when it comes to their child getting the right vaccine, and to closely monitor their children if they have been vaccinated.