Woman, 30, develops severe case of ‘world’s most deadly infection’ after she was given wrong vaccine

A WOMAN was developed a severe case of the world's most deadly infection after accidentally being given the wrong vaccine.

The “healthy” 30-year-old woman visited a clinic in Ireland to get her measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab.

But a bungling medic mixed up the vaccines and gave her a shot of the vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) – unwittingly infecting with her one of the world's most deadly diseases.

Known as the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, it's typically given to babies and young children to protect them against getting TB.

It involves injecting a weakened form of Mycobacterium bovis – the bacteria that causes TB – diluted in saline under the skin of the upper arm.

But because the medic thought they were giving the woman an MMR jab, they injected it into the muscle of her arm.

The BCG vaccine contains bacteria, not viruses like the MMR shot, so injecting it into the muscle allowed the bug to spread unchecked instead of giving her immunity, leading to infection in her deltoid muscle.

The 30-year-old developed an oozing boil at the injection site and was left battling an infection for months.

TB, dubbed the ‘world’s deadliest infection', is a debilitating bacterial infection often linked to the Victorian era, when it was called “consumption” due to the way it seemed to slowly waste away the body.

But even today it persists, killing around 1.25 million people globally each year.

Just this week, global health chiefs warned that TB cases were surging due to treatment failures – with infections in children in Europe jumping by 10 per cent.

It usually affects the lungs but can infect other parts of the body too, including the skin, glands, bones and nervous system.

It's very unlikely that people will get complications from the BCG vaccine – especially if it's administered correctly.

In rare cases, children and people with weakened immune systems might develop abscesses at the injection site or scarring.

“Studies have shown that 0.001 per cent of intradermal BCG vaccinations resulted in local complications in immunocompetent patients,” researchers wrote in a paper published to the American Journal of Case Reports.

“Factors such as the incorrect route of administration and an immunocompromised patient can increase the risk of complications from the BCG vaccine.”

A 30-year-old woman with no past medical history visited an outpatient clinic after it was recommended she get the MMR jab.

“She mistakenly received the BCG vaccine intramuscularly in
her left deltoid, and this error went unnoticed,” the case report authors observed.

“One week later, she started to developed pain, swelling,
and redness at the injection site on her shoulder.”

Medics who examined her at first suspected she had cellulitis – a bacterial skin infection affecting the deeper layers of the skin – and gave her a seven day course of antibiotics.

But when her symptoms still persisted two weeks after her jab, the woman received a MRI scan, which showed a lesion in her arm muscle.

A second scan two weeks after that showed that the lesion had swelled to an abscess and was filled with 15ml of fluid.

Baffled medics extracted samples from the lesion, struggling to identify the culprit.

Meanwhile, the woman's shoulder started to ooze “yellow, purulent discharge”.

Tests of the pus finally revealed that the woman was battling a TB infection, as it came back positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A chest X-ray confirmed that her lungs were unaffected by the infection and no further lesions were found.

The patient was given anti-TB meds two months after mistakenly receiving the vaccine.

“The initial treatment was effective, and she recovered fully and reported no further symptoms six months after initiation of the anti-tuberculosis treatment,” the report authors said.

“Another MRI scan was done during a followup three months after completion of anti-tuberculosis treatment, revealing a significant decrease in size of the BCG deltoid abscess.”

‘Erroneous administration'

They concluded: “Administration of the BCG vaccine intramuscularly is commonly the result of an error and can lead to rare and preventable complications, even in immunocompetent patients.

“On the other hand, the MMR vaccine is normally given intramuscularly to patients.

“A reasonable explanation for the error in this case is that the healthcare professional administering the vaccine confused the BCG vaccine for the MMR vaccine and injected it intramuscularly.

“Furthermore, this case demonstrates a complication of erroneous intramuscular administration of the BCG vaccine; only a few cases of
this type of incident have been recorded in the literature.”

Authors said that “proper training in vaccine injection technique” was key to preventing BCG jab complications such as the ones detailed in the report.

“Implementing measures to confirm the correct vaccine and
mode of administration for the patient before vaccine injection would also prevent future errors, as occurred in this case,” they added.