Germany: Investigation of a nurse who replaced doses of Pfizer with a saline solution
The German police subjected a nurse to an investigation on Sunday after admitting to replacing six doses of anti-Corona vaccines with a saline solution because they wanted to cover up dropping a Pfizer-Biontek vial from her hand and wasting its content.
The authorities asked 200 people who received the vaccine at a Red Cross center in Friesland last Wednesday to urgently apply for an antibody test to determine the identities of the six people who received saline solutions instead of vaccines.
The Wilhelmshaven / Friesland police in northern Germany said in a statement that it had opened an investigation for a possible "bodily harm" by the nurse, while stressing that the saline solutions did not pose a danger to the people who were injected with it.
The Pfizer vaccine is usually diluted with a saline solution before it is administered, and the nurse's job was to prepare the injection when she accidentally dropped a small vaccine vial, resulting in damage to its contents.
The nurse confided in what happened to one of her colleagues, who reported what happened to the authorities on Saturday.
The statement added, "The nurse said that what prompted her to do this was to avoid informing anyone about the vial that fell from her hand."
The local district administration has set up a hotline for people who were vaccinated on the day of the accident to apply for testing.
"I was very shocked by what happened," said Sven Ambrose, director of Friesland, adding that the authorities have now introduced a procedure called "four eyes" at the vaccination center to ensure that a person is not alone with vials of vaccines.