Nearly 2,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine broke down at a Boston area facility after a cleaning contractor accidentally released a plug for a freezer, according to a report.
VA Boston pharmacy staff discovered the shots Tuesday. At least 1,900 doses were compromised, said Kyle Toto, a spokesman for the VA Boston Healthcare System, at the Boston Globe.
“The plug was found loose after a contractor accidentally removed it while cleaning,” Toto said.
He added that he does not believe the damaged doses will affect the deployment of the vaccine and told the newspaper that replacement doses were already being administered.
Modern COVID-19 vaccines, as well as doses developed by rival Pfizer-BioNTech, should be stored at very low temperatures, between 13 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit negative. To maintain this temperature, the storage facilities at Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center were equipped with alarms designed to be activated if the doses were heated or cooled too much, although they did not sound when the freezer was turned off.
Toto said he wasn’t sure why he didn’t set off the alarm.
“An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the incident and why the surveillance and alarm system did not work as expected,” he said.
Massachusetts has reported a total of 462,910 coronavirus cases and 13,622 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic last year, according to the state Department of Public Health.