West Virginia Clinic Mistakenly Gives 42 People Antibody Treatment Instead of Coronavirus Vaccine, Officials Say

A clinic in West Virginia mistakenly administered the Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment instead of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine to over three dozen people, the state's National Guard said on Thursday. Forty-two people received the antibody product intramuscularly at a vaccination clinic hosted by staff at the Boone County Health Department. The FDA-approved treatment is typically given as an intravenous infusion. An administrator for the health department told ABC News it was an "isolated incident" but did not explain how the mix-up occurred.

Medical experts with the Joint Interagency Task Force do not believe there is any risk of harm to those 42 individuals; everyone who received the antibody has been contacted or is in the process of being contacted, the National Guard said. Regeneron, a drug cocktail consisting of antibodies designed to fight COVID-19, was administered to President Donald Trump when he became ill with the virus earlier this year.

"The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again," Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, said in a press release.

Because there is no data on the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in people who received antibodies as part of treatment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that "vaccination should be deferred for at least 90 days, as a precautionary measure until additional information becomes available, to avoid interference of the antibody treatment with vaccine-induced immune responses." However, despite that recommendation from the CDC, the West Virginia National Guard told ABC News that "there are no concerns that this will set individuals back 90 days" and that "all 42 individuals are being offered the vaccine today."

Dr. Clay Marsh, the state's COVID-19 czar, said there were no risks to the 42 people. "The product administered are antibodies that fight COVID-19," Marsh said in the statement. "In fact, this product was the same one that was administered to President Trump when he became infected. While this injection is not harmful, it was substituted for the vaccine. But this occurrence provides our leadership team an important opportunity to review and improve the safety and process of vaccination for each West Virginian."

The National Guard, which is in charge of vaccine distribution planning and logistics, said that 7,855 people were vaccinated on Wednesday in West Virginia. According to the CDC, more than 2.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, and more than 12.4 million have been distributed. U.S. officials promised to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020.