8-year-old boy vaccinated in Grand Prairie, officials say human error is to blame

An 8-year-old child was vaccinated with COVID-19 in Grand Prairie, in what city and county officials are calling supervision “human error,” according to a report by KXAS-TV (NBC5).

The boy’s father said he registered his son online and received a QR code for the vaccine, according to NBC 5, and didn’t realize there was anything wrong until he spoke to pediatrician Marcial Oquendo later.

“He was assuming, ‘I send your information and he got an appointment,'” Oquendo told the station. “And when he got an appointment, he said, ‘We all have an appointment, so let’s go.'”

Currently, no COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for use in children.

Both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been authorized only for Americans 18 years of age or older, and the Pfizer vaccine can currently be administered to people aged 16 and over. Recent studies have shown that Pfizer can protect children from the age of 12, while Moderna has recently started clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine in children under the age of 12.

“We don’t have the data, especially under 12, to say whether it works, whether it’s safe, how much we should use, what child can get and what not,” Oquendo told NBC 5. “He needs to be in a controlled environment of clinical trial, where we are monitoring all possible angles so that we can tell if it is safe and effective for use in children in this age group. “

Grand Prairie fire chief Robert Fite told the police station that he would investigate how the error happened and that the boy was one of 3,800 people who attended the drive-through site that day.

“They are in the car, they have a code, the paramedic did what that paramedic did for thousands of others that day and went ahead and gave him the vaccine, and did not realize it was a child under 18,” Fite told the NBC 5.

The vaccine center is jointly administered by Grand Prairie and Irving, and is under the direction of Dallas County.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins confirmed to NBC 5 that the boy was registered on the county website and, although he was initially flagged as ineligible, a human error caused the boy to be authorized for the vaccine.

“There was a human error and that list was moved to include people under 50 on the list of eligible people. They haven’t been able to scrub for people under 18, ”Jenkins told the station. “We have our IT department working with the third party to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Oquendo said it notified the Pediatric Society and the Dallas County Medical Society.

“We are still trying to figure out what to do next,” he told NBC 5. “We are trying to figure out who needs to know what.”