“In this amount it is completely harmless, that is not dangerous,” says Wolfgang Schweiger of the hypodermic syringes with saline solution. The emergency doctor from the vicinity of Munich is outraged by the employee of the vaccination center in northern Germany, who is said to have drawn only a sodium chloride solution into the syringes instead of the protective vaccine – from a medical point of view, however.
Every doctor knows appropriate solutions for dilution and replenishment, which are used in many areas of medicine. Venous accesses in patients are kept open, drugs are dissolved in them, wounds and catheters are flushed. Saline solutions are a universal remedy in medicine; they are particularly often used to compensate for water and electrolyte losses when dehydrated patients need fluids quickly.
The term physiological saline solution – better: isotonic saline solution – is derived from the concentration of the salt in the water. To get the right mixture, there are nine grams of table salt per liter of liquid, the mixture is also known in medical jargon as 0.9 percent saline solution. This means that the concentration is lower than in conventionally salted pasta water, but it corresponds almost exactly to the particle density of blood plasma. The similar density of the amount of substance means that there is hardly any fluid displacement between the blood vessels and the surrounding cells and tissues after the injection, which would unnecessarily burden the organism during an illness or in an emergency.
In addition to salt solutions, electrolyte solutions are now also used
Saline solutions have been used in medicine for a long time, but balanced salt and electrolyte solutions have been used more frequently for years, which contain not only sodium and chloride but also other substances such as potassium, calcium or lactate. They are called Ringer’s solution or Ringer’s lactate solution, and these infusion solutions have a more balanced composition and are therefore somewhat more tolerable than the saline solution.
Wolfgang Schweiger, who also looks after end-of-life patients at the Starnberg Clinic, knows other areas of application. “If older people are seriously ill and no more nasogastric tubes or infusions need to be inserted, we also give them 500 milliliters of fluid subcutaneously over 24 hours,” says the doctor; both saline and Ringer’s solution are used. “It is absorbed in the subcutaneous connective tissue and is used to replenish fluid.” In order to spare the seriously ill further suffering, they are given the liquid in a gentle way, which otherwise they can no longer take in sufficient quantities.
Incidentally, it is quite possible that the people in Friesland who were injected with saline instead of a vaccine with the syringe into the deltoid muscle still had slight side effects. The mechanical injury from the syringe, as well as the small reservoir of fluid in the muscle, could have caused minor upper arm pain in some people.