Jack Moore | jmoore@wtop.com
Last week, in a pharmacy in Loudoun County, Virginia, about 100 children whose children were vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine that may be less than the recommended dose, have advised their parents to talk to a pediatrician. The pharmacy provides children with a low-dose adult version of the vaccine instead of a pediatric version specifically for children under 12 years of age.
The county health department wrote to parents on Wednesday suggesting that on November 3 and November 4, shortly after the vaccine was approved for use in young children, Ted Pharmacy in Ordi injected the wrong dose.
The Virginia State Pharmacy Commission and the Virginia Department of Health are investigating the incident, and the latter has removed the pharmacy from the state’s vaccine program.
The Pfizer vaccine authorized for use in children contains the same active ingredients as the adult vaccine, but the formula is different. The recommended dose is one-third of the adult dose.
There are also different packages for children's doses. The adult dose comes with a purple cap, while the child dose comes with an orange cap to avoid confusion.
Dr. David Goodfriend, a health officer in Loudoun County, told the WTO that the pharmacy mistakenly tried to use the adult vaccine, reducing the adult dose to one-third to provide the child dose.
"We don't believe that any child has been vaccinated too much... The worrying thing is that when you reduce the dose by a third, we just don't know if they get the proper dose," he said.
According to a statement from Logan Anderson, the department’s public information officer, the Virginia Department of Health stated that a total of 112 children were vaccinated at Ted Pharmacy.
On November 5th, federal and state authorities ordered pharmacies to stop receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, and VDH collected all remaining doses.
The Virginia Department of Health stated that any affected child should see a pediatrician or primary care physician to determine the best plan of action.
"Some parents may worry that their child is not getting the full dose," Goodfriend said. "That's why we recommend that if they have such concerns, they should have a conversation with their doctor."
According to CDC guidelines, doctors can restart the correct two-dose regimen 21 days after the first dose, or schedule the second correct pediatric dose.
Goodfriend said that parents should consider the risks and benefits of these two practices.
"We know that children between the ages of 5 and 11, generally speaking, have a very low risk of developing COVID complications. But they may have other diseases, and they may have high-risk family members. So this is really the difference between the parent and the doctor. The decision was, “Well, what are the risks? If I only give them two doses, including that one (which may not be correct), and they don’t have the same level of protection? Compared to people who have had good results with the first two injections, the first What is the risk of three injections?'"
Goodfriend said that health officials have not heard of any adverse effects of this confusion, and they do not expect any adverse effects.
Nonetheless, parents should monitor children for side effects of vaccination, such as fever, chills, fatigue, pain, redness or swelling at the injection site, and headache. These side effects may occur one to three days after the injection, and most of them will occur the next day.
Neal Augenstein and Lukert of the WTO contributed to this report.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that pharmacies administer low-dose adult COVID-19 vaccine to children under 12 years of age, resulting in children vaccinating the dose may be lower than the recommended dose.
Jack Moore joined WTOP.com in July 2016 as a digital writer/editor. Prior to his current position, he worked as a news editor at Nextgov.com (part of the government administrative media group), responsible for federal government management and technical work.
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