When it comes to injections, parents have no choice but to put faith in doctors and nurses to immunize their children and keep them safe from fatal diseases. Nevertheless, such good faith can be misplaced, unexpectedly putting their babies’ health at risk.

Altogether, twelve babies from Dechang county, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan Province last Monday were accidentally given five times the regular dose of a tuberculosis prevention vaccine, stirring up widespread public outrage as well as concerns over how such a mistake was allowed to happen.

Dechang health and family planning authority responded on Friday by saying that the accident resulted from the “negligence” of a nurse who had mistakenly used the wrong syringe during injection. The nurse from the county’s health center has been now suspended from duty, and all twelve infants are currently in a stable condition in hospital, the health authority told Chengdu Business Daily.

The case was reported to the county’s health body last Monday after the nurse confessed to using the wrong syringe, hours after injecting the infants with the BGC (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) vaccination.

“She took the wrong syringes and injected each baby with 0.5 milliliters of the vaccine, rather than the standard 0.1 milliliters,” noted Cun Shengbing, head of the health care center. He added a contingency plan was immediately launched as soon as the case was reported.

Xu Wensheng, father of one of the twelve infants, said he was informed of the incident on the evening of last Monday, after receiving a phone call from the health care center where his new-born daughter had been immunized earlier that day. The health center asked him to take the baby girl back for further treatment due to the unexpected vaccine overdose.

As of Friday, all twelve babies had received a further four injections to counter the overdose.

Despite certain symptoms displayed by some of the infants following the treatment, including drowsiness and milk regurgitation, “altogether eight injections are expected to be carried out” over the following three months to curb any possible side effects, said Li Mingsan, deputy director of the Health and Family Planning Bureau in Dechang county.

Li also suggested no after-effects would occur as long as proper medical treatments were applied. “The disease control experts from the prefecture indicated during their investigation into the incident that among multiple similar cases they had dealt with so far, no adverse reactions were reported.”

While eight out of the twelve babies are currently receiving treatment in the county hospital, four others have been transferred to a hospital 150 kilometers away in the city of Panzhihua at the request of their parents.

Li said all the infants are stable, and they will continue to pay close attention to their health conditions.