AHS notifying patients of potential dTap vaccine ineffectiveness

EDMONTON – Alberta Health Services (AHS) will be notifying 131 patients who visited the emergency department at WestView Health Centre (WestView) in Stony Plain that the dTap vaccine provided to them as part of their treatment was potentially ineffective, due to incomplete temperature monitoring of a vaccine fridge.

During a routine audit on December 29, 2017, it was found that the temperature of the vaccine fridge at WestView’s emergency department had not been recorded properly.

The dTap vaccine prevents against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. In the case of emergency department, the vaccine was being used to update immunizations for patients with possible tetanus prone wounds.

Although the risk of tetanus infection is very low, AHS is notifying the patients related to this monitoring error and recommends that those individuals get re-immunized. There are no adverse reaction risks of getting re-immunized, though patients may experience typical reactions such as a sore arm at the site of the injection.

Only those individuals contacted directly by AHS, are considered impacted by this issue. Though there is no impact on general public, we are informing the public of this case and our follow-up actions, as a matter of transparency.

AHS regrets that this issue has resulted in an impact to our patients and we have ensured that proper monitoring is in now in place.

To protect patient privacy and confidentiality, AHS will not be providing any further detail relating to the patients impacted.

For general information on tetanus and the dTap vaccine, please visit immunizealberta.ca.

Anyone with questions can call Health Link 24/7 at 811.