A clinic has confessed to mistakenly injecting patients with COVID-19 antibodies when they thought they were receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
On Thursday, the West Virginia National Guard admitted that 42 people came to the Boone County Health Department’s vaccination clinic to receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Instead, staff injected them with the Regeneron antibody, which is used to treat the virus. The health department is notifying everyone who received the antibody.
Despite the mix-up, medical professionals with the Joint Interagency Task Force reassured people that those who received the wrong injections are not at risk of harmful side effects.
“The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again,” Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, said in a statement.
The FDA gave Regeneron emergency use permissions after Donald Trump praised the antibody for helping to heal him after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 in November.
Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s COVID-19 czar, also confirmed that the antibodies are not harmful to those who mistakenly received them.
“The products administered are antibodies that fight COVID-19. While this injection is not harmful, it was substituted for the vaccine. But this occurrence provides our leadership team an important opportunity to review and improve the safety and process of vaccination for each West Virginian.”
