• Sweden edition

Swine flu bill tops 900 million kronor

Published: 5 May 10 15:10 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/26474/20100505/

The swine flu vaccine is set to cost the Swedish tax payer 900 million kronor ($121 million), according to new figures released by the National Board of Health and Welfare.

The figure is 300 million kronor less than forecast after the vaccine's manufacturer Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) agreed to cut the number of supplied doses by 25 percent from 18 to 13.5 million doses.

Since the launch of the mass vaccination programme last autumn six million doses have been used, with the remaining seven million doses held in central reserve in the instance of a new outbreak.

"It is a good guarantee for the future and a good base," said Anders Tegnell at the board.

According to the agreement with GSK the firm has committed itself to upgrading the existing vaccine stocks if the virus changes or if another strain of influenza develops into a pandemic.

Furthermore the portion of the vaccine that helps to strengthen the immune system will be replaced at no cost if it is shown that it expires within three years.

The pandemic petered out in December after a peak in the late autumn but despite the anti-climax, Tegnell defended the decision to offer the vaccine to everyone.

"We have learnt just how unpredictable pandemics can be," he said.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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16:24 May 5, 2010 by rba
If we can spend near 100 million kronor to wed some royal parasites, 900 million kronor looks reasonable to protect the health of everyone in the country.
17:42 May 5, 2010 by Kronaboy
The problem is it was all a big con, never underestimate the power of fear (good old Machiavelli) to rustle up a nice tidy profit margin. I wonder if the families of the people who died from the vaccine got anything, as I recall in Sweden they outnumber the people who died from Swine Flue by 3 to 1??????
17:45 May 5, 2010 by harrylatour
It is the same in England,,we have millions of doses of vaccine left on the shelf after the Swine Flu scare.What is wrong in ALL of this,,is the fact that the newspapers stoked up panic with ''We are all going to die'' headlines,,,,bringing in their own ''rent a Docs'' to spread the panic even more by all the headline grabbing WORST CASE SCENARIO INTERVIEWS. Now here we are a few months later,,the governments were right,,,,the newspapers were wrong and we have to pick up the tab!! And now the newspapers are making news out of that as well!! Harry.
22:00 May 5, 2010 by norcalNisse
Sweden is wasting its money on this effort. I live near San Francisco, and the swine flu epidemic we were warned to prepare for never made it here. I don't know a single person who caught it, nor have I heard of anyone catching it except through media reports. Sure, government numbers may tell us that so-many people have died because of it, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a single person around here who knows a victim in real life.

I also don't know anyone who bothered with the vaccine. There are huge stockpiles of the stuff just sitting around unused.
10:19 May 6, 2010 by MTTRN
Wake up people. They are now admitting the whole thing was a hoax

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe:

"The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare. This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease."
10:44 August 3, 2010 by cosplay
The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare. This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease."
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