Superfluous swine flu vaccines
Millions of costs due to superfluous swine flu vaccine
(03.08.2010) Many federal states are still sitting on their swine flu vaccines. This causes costs in the millions. The state of Schleswig-Holstein alone had bought over one million doses of the serum "Pandemrix". Just 215,000 doses were actually administered. The costs incurred are immense, but this federal province spent about 8 million euros for a swine flu, which was probably massively overvalued in favor of the pharmaceutical industry.
According to a new recommendation of the Vaccination Commission at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the vaccine against swine flu will be integrated into the normal flu vaccine. This means there will be no explicit pig flu vaccine in the future. For the state of Schleswig-Holstein, the decision from a financial point of view is fatal. More than a million doses of the serum "Pandemrix" had bought the land. It is therefore unlikely that already packaged and delivered vaccine will be used in the next wave of influenza. The cost of about eight million euros should now carry Schleswig-Holstein.
Hardly anyone sees in Germany still a serious danger of the swine flu go out. Thus, the willingness of most people has dropped to be vaccinated against the H1 / N1 pathogen. Because a pandemic, as announced last year, was missing.
In addition to Schleswig-Holstein, other states remain at the expense. At the beginning of the year it was reported that the state of Berlin had already disposed of 100,000 vaccine doses, as the expiration date had expired. Apparently, the vaccine can not be sold cheaply abroad. Now the federal states demand a participation from the federation. So far, there is still no agreement, but negotiations have already begun. (Sb)
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