One of the first injections may have been botched
One of the first people in Canada to be given a COVID-19 vaccine likely didn't get any of the life-saving medicine because most of the liquid appears to have dripped out of the needle.
That's the assessment of Dr. Marie-france Raynault, the chief of the public health and preventive medicine division at the Centre hospitalier de l'université de Montréal. A video that was part of a CBC news report shows Tamara Dus injecting a needle into the arm of health-care worker Cecile Lasco at Toronto's Michener Institute on Monday — the second person in Ontario to be vaccinated. However, as the shot is administered, some liquid squirts out of the vial, just above the needle and leaks out onto Lasco's arm. Dus is then seen wiping up the liquid.
“It totally missed,” said Raynault, who has vaccinated thousands of people in her career. “This person is not really vaccinated. We can see the liquid dripping out, and it looks like as much liquid as would have been in the vial.”
Raynault believes the needle was not screwed in tightly enough to the vial and, as a result, the liquid spilled out. Because the Pfizer vaccine is only 0.3 millilitres of liquid, if there is any significant spillage the vaccine would have to be redone, she said.
“That person should be revaccinated,” Raynault said. “There's more danger to think you're immune than to get the vaccine again, because there is no danger of an overdose with this vaccine.”
Raynault said this is an error that is rather common and that those who administer vaccines are trained to redo them if such an error occurs. She added that every time something like that happened to her, she redid the vaccine. In this case, she said it's vital that Lasco be revaccinated.
“Because this is a virus that can be benign, but also very dangerous, you can't take any chances.”
Several other doctors and pharmacists have reviewed the video and agreed there was an error in giving the vaccine.
Reached Thursday afternoon, Dus said she was alarmed to see liquid leak out on the second vaccine she administered, but took action immediately to deal with the situation.
“I knew going into this that everything I did would be criticized worldwide,” said Dus, who supervises the vaccination clinic. “I was prepared for how I was doing it, what I was doing. I was not prepared for something to leak out of the syringe, but that's the risk you take when you're on live TV.”
Dus confirmed there was a problem with the needle's connection to the vial. To prevent such a recurrence, Dus said a pharmacist now prepares all the needles for the nurses at that vaccination site. This ensures as few people as possible are manipulating the syringes.
“It was alarming,” she said, adding that it was fortunate the incident happened under her watch. “It gave us a chance to educate all the staff and tell them: `If this happens, please let us know so we can re-evaluate it.' ”
Dus, who has administered thousands of needles during her career, added that it's not possible for her to determine if enough vaccine was given to the patient because it wasn't possible to know exactly how much spilled out. She said she contacted Lasco and told her what happened. She could not say if Lasco was revaccinated because of patient confidentiality reasons, but said she was part of the decision-making process.
Dus said 1,000 vaccines had been given by Thursday evening, but the only time there was leakage was when Lasco was vaccinated.