Name: Storage problem causes loss of 75 vaccine doses in New Mexico
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Storage problem causes loss of 75 vaccine doses in New Mexico

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You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.The state confirmed Tuesday it had to discard 75 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine because of potential overheating during delivery to a Clayton hospital.It was unclear how troublesome the loss of the vaccine would be for the state, given the limited volume of 17,550 doses New Mexico has received this week for front-line medical workers. Each person vaccinated requires two doses.A spokesman for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office said the 75 doses were en route from the state Department of Health’s warehouse in Albuquerque to Union County General Hospital in Clayton when a digital gauge indicated the storage temperature might be too warm.The vaccine must be kept at about 100 degrees below zero, requiring it to be stored in an ultra-cold freezer or on dry ice.Governor’s Office spokesman Matt Nerzig said the “temperature excursion” probably wasn’t a result of flawed packing but a glitch in the data-logging device.Crews were unable to verify what the vaccine’s temperature was during transport, Nerzig said.“It was decided in the interests of safety to discard the product and resend a new shipment tomorrow,” Nerzig said.Officials with Union County General Hospital could not be reached after business hours Tuesday to comment on the incident.The vaccine shipment was one of 18 that went from the Department of Health warehouse to hospitals throughout New Mexico on Tuesday. Five more hospitals were scheduled to receive vaccine doses directly from Pfizer that day.Health care workers in the COVID-19 unit at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center were the first in the state to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Monday as part of the nation’s mass vaccination campaign following the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency approval of the vaccine Friday.The approval came amid a nationwide spike in coronavirus cases.Front-line medical staff statewide are receiving the first doses of the vaccine, with staff and residents at long-term care nursing facilities expected to be in the second round.New Mexico health officials will review Tuesday’s incident and take steps to prevent similar problems in the future, Nerzig said.Data devices will be set at a narrower temperature range, and the alarm will go off just before the temperature gets too high, Nerzig said. That will give personnel a chance to take corrective action before the vaccine becomes too warm, he said.Personnel will be on call by cellphone every morning during the hours the vaccine is transported, he saidPfizer’s initial delivery of the vaccine to New Mexico is part of a Pfizer pilot distribution program.New Mexico is one four states taking part in a trial run of the vaccine’s distribution to hospital staff treating COVID-19 patients and other health workers to gather data on logistical challenges, such as distributing the vaccine to diverse communities spread out in sprawling rural areas.The state is using the warehouse partly to break down Pfizer’s 975-dose packs into smaller shipments to rural hospitals that need only a fraction of that amount.Those smaller shipments include a total of 450 doses being sent to Laguna, Acoma and Picuris pueblos, Nerzig said.AdvertisementSorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.Copyright © The Santa Fe New Mexican&nbsp;|Powered by from .{{title}}{{summary}}You don't have any notifications.Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.TopicsSorry, an error occurred.You are logged in&nbsp;Thank you .Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.Check your email for details.Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account.×Thank you.Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.Rate:Begins:Ends:Transaction ID:A receipt was sent to your email.

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.The state confirmed Tuesday it had to discard 75 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine because of potential overheating during delivery to a Clayton hospital.It was unclear how troublesome the loss of the vaccine would be for the state, given the limited volume of 17,550 doses New Mexico has received this week for front-line medical workers. Each person vaccinated requires two doses.A spokesman for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office said the 75 doses were en route from the state Department of Health’s warehouse in...

Storage problem causes loss of 75 vaccine doses in New Mexico

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