Vet Injected People With Dog Vaccine to Fight COVID-19 in Chile: Officials

A man receives the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a site in Chicago, Ill., on April 6, 2021. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

A veterinarian in Chile confessed to injecting people with a dog vaccine and saying it would protect them against the CCP virus, according to local reports.

Maria Fernanda Munoz of Calama is accused by Chilean health authorities of administering the shot to at least 70 people during the second half of 2020, and she told them it would immunize them against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, otherwise known as the novel coronavirus.

“We arrived at the premises and when we saw the staff without masks, we consulted them and they said that they were vaccinated by the veterinarian (Muñoz) against COVID-19 when we [Chile] still did not have a vaccine. I’m talking about last year,” Antofagasta Undersecretary of Health Roxana Diaz recently told the Chilean state-run news channel 24 Horas.

According to local Spanish language media, she gave the shot 70 to 75 people and had 90 doses left of the dog vaccine.

Munoz admitted to 24 Horas that she self-administered the canine shot. Officials did not say what type of canine vaccine it was.

It occurred before any COVID-19 vaccines were approved for usage in Chile, noted The Associated Press.

“If the vaccine is so bad [then why] didn’t it do anything to me? Why doesn’t the Seremi de Salud [regional health authority] come and test my blood to see if it has antibodies [against the CCP virus]?” Munoz asked defiantly, as reported by local media. She confirmed that she administered the dog vaccine to four people.

Officials said the other vet was identified as Carlos Pardo, according to local media and AP.

A secretary for Munoz said that neither she nor her family had any problems after getting the dog vaccine.

“My husband in the company he works for ... was with those people and he was not infected by the vaccine that the doctor gave him,” the unnamed secretary was quoted as saying by local outlets.

Munoz was fined about $10,300, and Pardo was fined $9,200, officials told AP.

Diaz said Pardo had claimed “to have done a study on human beings and published it on (social media) networks to be able to sell the canine vaccine and inoculate it in humans,” the reports said.