King medical centre accidentally gives people 6 doses of COVID-19 vaccine in one shot

Thestar.com
Jan. 24, 2022

Individuals receiving their COVID-19 vaccine at a medical clinic in King Township earlier this month were accidentally given the equivalent of six doses in one shot due to an “administration error”.

Patrick Casey, the region’s Director of Corporate Communications, has confirmed that individuals received undiluted doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Schomberg Medical Centre.

Before being administered, a fact sheet shows that each vial must be thawed and injected with nonpyrogenic distilled water after adding 1.8 mL of 0.9 per cent sodium chloride. Each vial contains six 0.3 mL doses.

The region’s public health department, which did not operate the clinic, is following up with the medical centre after being notified of the error on Jan. 8.

“We know this type of incident can cause anxiety for many people; rest assured COVID-19 vaccines are safe and administration errors are extremely rare,” said Casey.

This is not the first time mistakes have been made at vaccine clinics in the region.

Six people were mistakenly injected with saline instead of the Pfizer vaccine at a Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital clinic in April of last year.

An audit process conducted by Mackenzie Health identified the mistake.

While receiving a saline injection does not cause any harm, Mackenzie Health said the incident should never have happened and implemented additional safeguards to prevent it from happening again.