GRAFTON, Wis. — Earlier this week, 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine were taken out of a pharmacy refrigerator, according to officials at Aurora Medical Center - Grafton.

On Wednesday, Aurora Health Care announced that their removal was "intentional."

After launching an internal review, Aurora initially announced that the incident was caused by accidental "human error." However, they confirmed Wednesday evening that this was the deliberate action of an individual employee.

The individual is no longer employed by Aurora Health Care, and they acknowledged that they removed the vials on purpose, officials said.

Aurora did not name the individual.

Aurora said in a statement that they notified authorities for further investigation. 

"We believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic," a spokesperson with Aurora Health Care said. 

The 57 vials that were removed resulted in losing more than 500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to officials. 

Police in Grafton said in a statement that the department, FBI and Food and Drug Administration are "actively" investigating the case. Police said they were notified of the alleged tampering Wednesday night. Police said Thursday morning that no other information would be immediately released, and declined to say if any arrests have been made.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated to include new information about a federal investigation under way. (December 31, 2020)