Just over a dozen parents who got their kids vaccinated at a popup clinic put on by Sutter Health in Antioch were told they got an incorrect amount of the vaccine.
Pediatrician Dr. Jimmy Hu, chair of Sutter's Vaccine Task Force, released a statement Monday night saying, “This weekend 14 patients at our Antioch Pediatric Vaccine Clinic received vaccines with an incorrect amount of diluent.”
UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong explains what that could mean.
“As vaccines get drawn out for kids or adults you get it in a concentrated form just like for orange juice for example,” he said. “Then you dilute the concentrate and draw up in a syringe.”
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Sutter Health declined to say if the kids were given too much or too little. But the statement says they immediately reviewed the processes to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Chin-Hong further explains what can happen if you don’t dilute the vaccine enough.
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“You’re going to get something that’s more concentrated in the same volume of syringe, and that’s probably what happened,” he said.
According to the CDC, patients who receive a vaccine with an incorrect diluent volume “may experience arm soreness, headache or even a fever.”
This isn’t the first misstep during the vaccine rollout.
Back in March at the Oakland Coliseum, more than 6,000 people received slightly less than the recommended dose of Pfizer's vaccine.
As for what happened in Antioch over the weekend, Chin-Hong says parents shouldn’t be overly concerned if the dose was off. During the clinical trials, children were given more than the recommended dosage, and showed no ill effects.
