After struggling for weeks to expand the release of the South Bay COVID-19 vaccine, Santa Clara County officials are warning that a specific batch of doses should not be administered due to the increased risk of allergic reactions.
Santa Clara County received about 21,800 doses of Moderna Lot 41L20A distributed on January 5 and 12. More than 330,000 doses of the batch were distributed across the state. Now, health officials are suspending vaccines in the batch and warning that some individuals may have an acute allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, after receiving the injection.
“As far as the county is concerned, no dose of this batch of vaccine has been administered to anyone in Santa Clara County,” the county health department said in a statement.
State health officials announced on Sunday that less than 10 people administered vaccines from this batch had a reaction that required medical attention and that the decision to stop administering the batch was “out of extreme caution”. The reactions were recorded in several individuals at a large vaccination site in San Diego.
“Our goal is to provide the COVID vaccine safely, quickly and equitably,” said California state epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan.
Pan said the California Department of Public Health is “recommending that providers use another inventory of available vaccines and pause administration of vaccines for Lot 041L20A from Moderna until the investigation by CDC, FDA, Moderna and the state is complete.”
County officials have notified health care providers who have received doses of this batch, specifically Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Stanford Health Care and El Camino Health. Health officials said they were not aware of any unusual adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccinations in Santa Clara County, but they have stopped administering this batch to comply with the state’s recommendation.
“We do not administer any vaccine from this batch and withdraw it from our current stock,” said El Camino Health spokesman Christopher Brown. “We are awaiting additional information from Santa Clara County and the California Department of Public Health. The community vaccination clinic of El Camino Health will continue as planned tomorrow, using the Modern vaccine that is not from this specific batch. “
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the fact that allergic reactions are detected quickly and the batch removed is an example of how the system is working properly.
“This is a known complication of the vaccine,” said Benjamin. “The numbers (of reactions) are still very small, but the fact that they left a lot, a place, a company means that the investigation (of the cause) must be much easier.”
Meanwhile, said Benjamin, millions of doses of VOCsThe ID-19 vaccines have already been administered without complications.
Kaiser Permanente officials told San José Spotlight in a statement that all vaccines in the batch in question were removed from the system’s vaccine stock.
“At Kaiser Permanente, we did not report any serious adverse reactions in patients who received the vaccine from this batch,” said the statement. “Although the entire vaccine supply is extremely limited, this situation affects only a relatively small percentage of our supply.”
Stanford Health Care spokeswoman Julie Greicius said Stanford had received 4,000 doses of the batch in question, but none have been used yet.
“Doses are hijacked until further guidance from our state and local health authorities,” said Greicius.
State and city officials promised updates as they learned more.
County officials also announced over the weekend that a new variant of COVID-19 was discovered in Santa Clara County. Scientists do not know how infectious or transmissible the variant is, but it has become more prevalent since November and has been linked to several major outbreaks in South Bay.
On January 18, the county reported 93,557 COVID-19 cases and 1,076 deaths.
For common reader questions about the vaccine launch in Santa Clara County, click here.
Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @MadelynGReese