Bartlett Regional Hospital pharmacy technicians Justin Richardson, Andrea Stats, and Krischelle Batac and pharmacy director Ursula Iha accept the hospital’s first delivery COVID-19 vaccine. Image courtesy of Christopher Sperry, clinical coordinator, Bartlett Regional Hospital.
In a modern-day sequel to the 1925 diphtheria serum run to Nome, AK, Alaska Airlines and UPS stood in for sled dog relays to provide Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau its first doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
“We had doses in arms within 2 hours of when it landed in Juneau,” said Ursula Iha, director of pharmacy at the 57-bed hospital. Iha said she and all staff members who were onsite December 15 and wanted to be vaccinated received their first dose that day.
In a January 13 update, Iha said the hospital’s infection prevention and employee health nurses were still vaccinating staff members daily, and the team was preparing to start vaccinating local residents.
“We are working with our community public health to provide over 1,000 doses to Juneau senior citizens” January 15–17, she said.
The delivery of BNT162b2, an investigational mRNA COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, is a bright spot in an otherwise brutal time for the pharmacists and other healthcare workers on the pandemic’s front lines.
Iha said a group gathered around the infection prevention specialist who was the first staff member to be vaccinated.
“She was crying a little bit. It was so emotional; it was so exciting that hopefully there’s a turn in the phase in the pandemic,” Iha said.
The hospital was allotted about 500 doses from the 975-dose tray, with the remainder earmarked for local long-term care facilities and first responders, Iha said. She noted that hospital has an ultralow freezer that serves as a vaccine storage “mini-depot” for doses allocated elsewhere.
Iha said news of the vaccine’s imminent arrival came from a colleague who was dropping off a family member at the local airport and obtained the flight information for the vaccine shipment. That prompted Iha and 2 colleagues go to the airport so they could watch the airplane land.
“We wanted . . . to see this historic moment,” she said.
The hospital began planning months ago for the complexities of handling COVID-19 vaccines. Once the emergency use authorization (EUA) for BNT162b2 was finalized, pharmacy technicians documented the procedure for safely storing, preparing, and administering the vaccine as described in the EUA.
Iha said the pharmacy team’s biggest challenge was coordinating the timing of vaccine preparation, which is done in the pharmacy cleanroom, and getting those doses to the point of dispensing for immediate administration by nurses.
Through mid-January, 543 hospital employees had received their first dose of the vaccine, and about 460 had been administered the second dose, Iha said.
Other than very mild arm soreness, Iha felt no ill effects after being vaccinated. But she reported that a total of 3 people had an adverse reaction serious enough to require treatment with epinephrine, steroids, and diphenhydramine.
In accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, none of these three employees were given the second dose, Iha said.
She added that 5 other vaccine recipients had milder reactions requiring extra postvaccination monitoring; all of these staff members subsequently received their second dose of the vaccine.
“I think it is very important that we continue to monitor adverse events, especially during this initial phase,” Iha said. She emphasized that no one is being pressured to get vaccinated.
Overall, she said, staff members seem to be relieved that vaccine is available.
“We still are facing a lot of illness and a road to dealing with this pandemic. But I think at least now, there is the vaccine to help protect us frontline workers,” she said.
COVID-19 case counts have been on a sharp upward trajectory since fall in Alaska and elsewhere in the country, and experts anticipated even worse days after the new year. Iha said the hospital’s infection prevention specialist cautioned her colleagues to continue wearing masks and limiting exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“We’re in the darkest part of the winter, but the light is coming. And maybe we can have mask-burning parties for summer solstice—but not quite yet,” Iha said.
For more information and free tools regarding the pandemic, including the Assessment of Evidence for COVID-19-Related Treatments, visit ASHP’s COVID-19 Resource Center and the COVID-19 Community at ASHP Connect.