21 COVID-19 Vaccine Shipments Spoiled On Their Way To Michigan

MICHIGAN — An unknown number of doses of the Moderna vaccine were spoiled on their way to Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was notified by the medical supply company McKesson that several shipments of Moderna vaccines shipped on Sunday had their temperature reported as too cold.

The state did not say how many doses of the vaccine were spoiled due to the temperature issue but said the cause of the issue is under investigation by McKesson.

“We are committed to accelerating vaccine delivery as we work to reach our goal of vaccinating 70% of Michiganders over age 16 as quickly as possible with the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Michigan Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said Tuesday. “Although it is unfortunate that this vaccine will not be able to be used, we are pleased that the safeguards put into place to ensure the integrity of the vaccine worked.

"This is the first report of vaccine potentially being compromised during shipment in Michigan and we are working quickly with the distributor to have replacement vaccine shipped out.”

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Each vaccine shipment is equipped with a temperature monitoring device used to monitor the vaccine temperature while in transport, the state said. The state said McKesson is working to repack additional vaccines to ship out as replacement doses for those that may be compromised, and the majority of the 21 shipments were resent on Monday night with the rest being sent Tuesday.

An additional six shipments were held back to check that there were no issues with the vaccine that could delay scheduled vaccinations at those six vaccine provider sites, the state said in a news release.

Vaccines are shipped to vaccine providers across the state by the manufacturers and distributors. No vaccine is shipped or distributed by MDHHS.

Recently, several communities across Michigan had noticed shortages in COVID-19 vaccine doses.

The city of Detroit's health department is rescheduling some appointments patients had scheduled to receive their respective doses of COVID-19 vaccines after it was allotted about 4,000 fewer vaccine doses than it was expecting this week, Mayor Mike Duggan said Tuesday.

Other communities, such as Wayne and Washtenaw counties, also reported receiving fewer doses than what they expected. It is unclear if the shortages and the 21 shipments spoiled are related.

Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman with the MDHHS, said Tuesday that many entities request a lot of vaccines but are not always allocated as many as they request.

"Allocations are based on the amount states are provided by the federal government," Sutfin told Patch in an email Tuesday. "Not all locations receive as much vaccine as they request, which is why we have requested additional vaccine from the federal government. Allocations available to Michigan this week are being distributed to providers across the state."

Michigan has now reported 540,115 confirmed coronavirus cases and 13,865 deaths being attributed to COVID-19. On Saturday, Michigan reported that more than 442,408 people in the state have recovered from the coronavirus.