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– About 500 doses of the costly Moderna coronavirus vaccine have been discarded at a Wisconsin clinic after “accidental human error.” Fifty vials, each containing 10 doses of vaccine, were removed from a refrigerator on Friday at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, 20 miles north of Milwaukee, so that someone could access other items in the refrigerator, according to a statement by lawyer Aurora . Health, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The bottles have not been returned to the refrigerator. The error was realized before 12 hours had passed, meaning that some vaccine doses could still be administered. But the majority had to be thrown out on Saturday, as the vaccine can no longer be kept at room temperature.
The Moderna vaccine is shipped frozen, and once thawed, vials can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 30 days (at temperatures between 36 degrees Fahrenheit and 46 degrees Fahrenheit). “We are clearly disappointed and regret that this has happened,” said officials from Advocate Aurora Health, who vaccinated about 17,000 of its employees in the past two weeks. Sentinel Magazine. Earlier this month, the Albuquerque Journal reported that a shipment of 75 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine in New Mexico had to be disposed of “after a digital device showed it had overheated during transport to a hospital in Clayton.” A spokesman for Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said it was “probably a malfunction in the digital data logger.” (Read more stories about coronavirus vaccines.)