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8-year-old boy vaccinated in Grand Prairie, officials say human error to blame

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said health officials are working to ensure it does not happen again.

An 8-year-old was vaccinated for COVID-19 in Grand Prairie in what city and county officials are calling a “human error” oversight, according to a report by KXAS-TV (NBC5).

The boy’s father said he registered his son online and received a QR code for the vaccine, according to NBC 5, and did not realize anything was wrong until he spoke with pediatrician Marcial Oquendo afterward.

“He was under the assumption that, ‘I submit his information and he got an appointment,’” Oquendo told the station. “And when he got an appointment, he was like, ‘We all got an appointment so let’s go.’”

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Currently, no COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for use in children.

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Both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have only been authorized for Americans 18 years of age and older, and the Pfizer vaccine can currently be administered to people 16 and older. Recent studies have shown the Pfizer may protect children as young as 12, while Moderna has recently begun clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine on children under the age of 12.

“We don’t have the data, especially under the age of 12 to say if it works, is it safe, how much should we use, which kid can get it and which kids can’t,” Oquendo told NBC 5. “It needs to be in a controlled setting of a clinical trial where we are monitoring every possible angle to be able to say if it’s safe and effective to use in kids in this age group.”

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Grand Prairie Fire Chief Robert Fite told the station he would be looking into how the mistake happened and that the boy was one of 3,800 people who came to the drive-through site that day.

“They’re in the car, there’s a code, the paramedic did what that paramedic did for thousands of others for that day and went ahead and gave the vaccination, and did not realize it was a child under the age of 18,” Fite told NBC 5.

The vaccine hub is run jointly by Grand Prairie and Irving, and is under the direction of Dallas County.

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Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins confirmed to NBC 5 that the boy was signed up through the county’s website, and although he was initially flagged as ineligible, human error caused the boy to be authorized for the vaccine.

“There was human error, and that list was moved over to get the people who were under 50 onto the eligible list. They failed to scrub for people who were under 18,” Jenkins told the station. “We’ve got our IT department working with the third-party company to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Oquendo said he’s notified the Pediatric Society of Greater Dallas and Dallas County Medical Society.

“We’re still trying to figure out what to do next,” he told NBC 5. “We’re trying to figure out who needs to know what.”