Two hundred vials of a chickenpox vaccine were reported missing July 20 from the Kaiser Permanente clinic in Pleasanton.
Kaiser employee Robert Vavuris reported the vials missing at 11 a.m.
The vials, valued at $74 a piece, were first thought to have been stolen, but as the investigation has continued, officials say it looks like a simple case of an inventory miscount. The total value of the missing vials is $14,912.
Police officials and Kaiser have been conducting an internal investigation into the source of the missing vials.
“Itís looking less and less like a theft and more and more like a miscount,” said Kaiser spokeswoman Gerri Ginsburg.
The vials are kept in a refrigeration device to keep them at a certain constant temperature. When the vials are removed from the refrigerator, they lose their effectiveness against the chickenpox virus.
“It needed to be refrigerated,” said Ginsburg. “It really does not have any value if it was not refrigerated properly.”
The vials contain .5 milliliters of Varicella made by the company Varivax.
