The federal government has confirmed that a 95-year-old woman was mistakenly injected with an empty syringe at a Covid-19 vaccination center in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, last Saturday.

The government’s delegate in the northern state acknowledged the error after a video of the incident began circulating on social media.

Jorge Taddei Bringas said the young man who made the mistake, a nursing student who was working as a volunteer at the vaccination center, was located and explained that he had made a “human error” due to fatigue.

He added that the young man apologized for his mistake.

“Obviously we also apologize,” Taddei said, adding that the woman was located and given a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

“That’s what really concerns us … because it would be a tremendous fraud if the lovely 95-year-old lady didn’t receive the vaccine,” he said.

The delegate said an investigation into the student’s error is underway to rule out that it was intentional. If anyone has evidence that the woman was deliberately injected with an empty syringe they should submit it to the government, Taddei said.

It was the first time that vaccination with an empty syringe has been detected in Mexico since shots against Covid-19 were first given on December 24.

More than 7.8 million vaccine doses had been administered by Wednesday night, according to Health Ministry data, mainly to health workers and seniors.

Mexico has received almost 13.5 million vaccine doses, among which are Pfizer, AstraZeneca, SinoVac, Sputnik V and CanSino shots.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated coronavirus case tally rose to almost 2.24 million on Wednesday with 5,977 new cases reported while the official Covid-19 death toll increased by 577 to 203,210.

Source: El Universal (sp)