Officials at Advocate Condell Medical Center in the suburban city of Libertyville say they will resume coronavirus vaccination of staff members on Sunday after pausing injections after reactions in four staff members who received treatment this week .
The decision to pause the vaccines was made on Friday after four people who received treatment experienced tingling and high heart levels shortly after receiving the injection.
“As a precaution, we are temporarily pausing vaccines in Condell, which will allow us to better understand what may have caused these reactions,” officials said in a statement Friday.
Hospital officials say they conducted a “thorough internal review,” consulting experts on infectious diseases and clinicians, and decided to resume the vaccination program on Sunday.
According to officials, one in four cases appears to be a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine. The individual who suffered the reaction was hospitalized overnight for follow-up, but officials say the person has been discharged.
Due to privacy laws, the hospital was unable to delve into this person’s medical history.
The other three individuals were treating more typical reactions to the vaccine, and all went well on Saturday, according to officials.
“One of the team members who had a mild reaction … was a doctor from our medical staff,” said Dr. Robert Citronberg, executive medical director of infectious disease prevention and prevention at Advocate Aurora Health. “Today we contacted this doctor who feels very well. It is absolutely 100% of the continued vaccination of our population, knowing the importance of ending the pandemic. He has no doubts. “
The hospital will make a change in its procedures, increasing the so-called “post-vaccination evaluation period” to 30 minutes after the injection, a move they say is stricter than the CDC’s recommendations for the vaccine.
According to the press release, approximately 6,000 hospital staff members have received the vaccine so far.
Attorney Condell received the vaccines from the Lake County Department of Health and said he has no reason to believe the batch was bad, as no other hospital reported any problems.
“We are very confident that there are no issues with the integrity of this large number of vaccines,” Citronberg said. “We will continue to use the supply of vaccines in this 120-hour period.”
As a result of the situation in the suburban hospital, health officials have assured the public that the vaccine is safe.
“… The benefit of vaccinations [the] the population far outweighs the risk, despite knowing from time to time that we will have some reactions to the vaccine, ”he said.