Expired booster vaccines was administered to 51 people last week

A total of 51 people who took their booster vaccines on Tuesday last week have been informed that the vaccine used was expired, according to a government press release issued this morning.

Director General of Health and Social Services Gaylene Tasmania says that 51 people were administered booster doses which had already passed its expiry date under refrigerated storage conditions.

“As soon as we became aware of the misinterpretation on expiry dates, we notified the 51 people and their families. Of the 51 people, 48 were 16–17-year-olds, and 3 were adults.  We are working closely with New Zealand’s Ministry of Health and New Zealand’s Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC) on incident management and clinical advice,” says Gaylene Tasmania.

IMAC Medical Advisors say that it is not generally recommended to re-vaccinate the healthy 16 to 17-year-olds because the vaccine is very likely to be still viable and research has shown that the booster vaccines still provides protection.

According to the press release, the three adults are likely to be re-vaccinated.

Health officials have confirmed that the 51 people are the only recipients affected in this vaccine campaign.

Meanwhile, the passengers who arrived on Monday this week all returned negative results of their Day 1 tests completed yesterday.