Swine flu vaccines to be dumped

Hundreds of thousands of doses of the swine flu (H1N1) vaccine are set to be dumped in the Czech Republic as health authorities concede that low rates of infection mean the vaccines are no longer needed.

About 600,000 doses could be discarded at a total cost of 110 million Kč due to a lack of interest, chief vaccination officer Roman Prymula told reporters. He added that the vaccinations would be stored but would then have to be thrown away next year as they reach their expiration date.

The controversy comes as the Council of Europe adopted a damning report June 4 on the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its handling of the virus outbreak. It said WHO may have overstated the seriousness of the virus by declaring it a serious pandemic when only mild symptoms were evident. Moreover, the report claims that drug companies, who stood to profit from the outbreak, were directly involved in the public decision making process.

"Various factors have led to the suspicion that there may have been undue influence by the pharmaceutical industry, notably the possibility of conflicts of interest of experts represented in WHO advisory groups, the early stage of preparing contractual arrangements between member states and pharmaceutical companies as well as the actual profits that companies were able to realize as a result of the influenza pandemic," the report said.

"Concluding this first round of reflection on the way in which the H1N1 pandemic was handled, the rapporteur [author] notes that WHO and other public health institutions involved in public decisions on the pandemic, have 'gambled away' some of the confidence that the European public has in these highly reputed organizations."

It added that commercial interest in the virus can be illustrated by the large profits pharmaceutical companies could reap by providing vaccines. According to J.P. Morgan, the sales of H1N1 vaccines in 2009 were expected to result in overall profits of between $7 billion (150.7 billion Kč) and $10 billion to pharmaceutical laboratories.

Meanwhile, according to figures presented by drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis at the beginning of 2010, the group registered net profits of 7.8 billion euros (202 billion Kč), or an increase of 11 percent due to a record year of anti-flu vaccines sales.

Locally, it appears that confusion over the seriousness of the virus could have resulted in the government buying more vaccines than were actually needed.

The Czech Republic's Chief Public Health Officer Michael Vít said he believed the purchases were necessary, because no one knew how the virus in the population would behave and how many people would contract swine flu. Official data showed that 2,477 people were infected with H1N1 and 102 people died as a result. This compares with about 2,500 people dying each year from the common influenza virus.

But the Czech Republic is not the only country that appears to have been swayed by exaggerations. In Australia, more than 7.5 million of the 19 million doses of swine flu vaccine bought by the federal government could have been wasted, after a survey found 42 percent of doses distributed to a sample of doctors ended up in the bin.

One expert in the Medical Journal of Australia said the findings showed the swine-flu vaccine program had been "a monetary and strategic mistake."

Meanwhile, the Council of Europe report states that, in France, 263 people had died of influenza as of Jan. 21, compared to between 4,000 and 6,000 deaths from seasonal influenza.

In the United Kingdom, it was a similar situation. The Department of Health downgraded its estimate of deaths from the virus to 1,000 from 65,000 in early 2010. By January, fewer than 5,000 persons had been registered as having H1N1, and about 360 deaths had been confirmed.

- Klára Jiricná contributed to this report.

Gabriella Hold can be reached at
ghold@praguepost.com