Algeria lost $6 million on unused swine flu vaccine

Some 1 million and 400 doses of swine flu vaccine are still packed in hospitals’ main laboratories in Algeria as people avoided it fearing of its side effects. This means the public treasury lost $6 million on vaccine bound to be ineffective after a year.

• Algeria reported the last H1N1 case in early January. A total of 70 people were killed by the virus. Most of them, people suffering from chronic diseases and pregnant women. The total number of confirmed cases is estimated at about 300.
•  
• The medical deontology council Chairman, Berkani Bekat told Echorouk Saturday the Algerian health ministry made a big mistake in its way of dealing with H1N1 virus. “The vaccine was brought when the disease stopped spreading. Awareness-raising campaigns failed to convince people in the necessity of the vaccine.”
•  
• Previously, the ministry said it needed 20 million doses of the vaccine worth $80 million to vaccinate the possible largest number of people. On the other hand, it reduced the number to 5 million doses because of the increasing number of demands for the vaccine in foreign laboratories.
•  
• The ministry was provided with 1, 4 million vaccines only. Of them, about 400 doses were used while the rest is still packed in hospital’s central pharmacies.
•  
• Doctor Bekat believes that Algeria is a victim of the century cheating as it followed the World Health Organisation (WHO). Experts had a hand in that as they were coordinating with well-known world laboratories. “They gained billions of dollars due to this misleading campaign.”
• The WHO reported 17,483 death cases. “These figures are not significant compared to the number of deaths following the ordinary influenza which kills not less than 1 million people every year in the world,” said the medical deontology council Chairman.
•  
• He added that the last case was announced on March 27th. “Since then, any neither death nor H1N1 case has been reported in any country.”
•  
• “In Africa, the virus killed 167 people while more than 8,175 death cases were reported in Americas. In the Middle East, the swine flu killed 1,019 and 4,669 in Europe.”