MISADMINISTRATION OF VACCINES

[Anchor Lead]

Nearly 90% of the Korean people have been vaccinated against COVID-19. So far, there have been more than 6,000 cases of vaccine misadministration, like using expired vaccines or wrong dosages, but only two cases have received damage compensation.

[Pkg]

A man surnamed A received a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a neighborhood clinic ahead of his overseas travel. He was belatedly informed that he had received the vaccine that had expired two days earlier. The clinic and the KDCA only said that he should be vaccinated again.

[Soundbite] Victim of Vaccine Misadministration(VOICE MODIFIED) : “If they left it up to me to get another shot, I wouldn’t get vaccinated again. I did get a third dose, only that it wasn’t effective.”

Eleven individuals were administered such expired Pfizer vaccines.

[Soundbite] Suwon Yeongtong-gu Dist., Clinic Employee : “We notified the medical clinic that we are terminating its consignment contract. We also monitored the group for abnormal reactions for 7 days.”

The neighborhood clinic admitted that it had not checked the expiration date written on the vaccine box. According to the data presented by health authorities to the office of Representative Kim Hack-yong, there have been some 6,000 cases of such vaccine misadministration. More than half of the cases involved using expired vaccines or unapproved cross-inoculation. About 10% of the cases were dosage errors.

[Soundbite] Prof. Jung Jae-hun(Gachon Univ.) : “If there was an issue with vaccine storage, it could cause local or general abnormal reactions.”

However, damage compensation was given to only two cases in which the causality between abnormal reactions and vaccination were acknowledged. Damage compensation for vaccine misadministration itself is still inadequate.

[Soundbite] Lee Dong-chan(Attorney) : “Discussions are underway for special laws for victims of vaccine misuse.There should be a clause for people who were wrongly vaccinated.”

As the medical institutions where vaccination errors occurred are dealt with a simple termination of consignment contracts, there are growing calls for institutional improvement.