Most of the patients were adults, but about 2,300 patients were 18 or under and about 1,255 patients are under the age of 6. Ventura County Health Care Agency is contacting high-risk patients, such as families with children under 6 and those with chronic conditions, and urging them to get revaccinated at its clinics for free.
Health officials attribute the ineffective vaccines to a packaging process change that took place in October 2017. The agency said it moved to the new packaging process to make sure the vaccines and medications were in a cool and controlled environment during delivery.
“We recently discovered that this performance improvement effort to change packaging for safety may have exposed the vaccines and medications to cooler than recommended temperatures,” Ventura County Health Care Agency told VC Star.
The agency said it is uncertain of how much the temperature change affected the vaccines and medications, but cautions all patients to be revaccinated and receive treatment. The agency extended its clinic hours to accommodate the revaccinations.
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