Drug firm agrees to take back Germany's surplus swine flu shots

Jan 7, 2010, 18:14 GMT

Berlin - A drug firm agreed Thursday to take back millions of swine flu shots which Germany needlessly ordered last year amid dire warnings about mass deaths from the worldwide H1N1 epidemic.

Germany ordered enough double doses to vaccinate one-third of its 80 million people, ensuring that hospital staff and old people were safe and the epidemic would peter out. Officials rightly guessed that a majority would ignore appeals to be vaccinated.

Later, doctors discovered two doses per person were unnecessary, and that a single dose was enough. Germany was left with double as much vaccine as it needed to stop the new influenza virus, a mutation of the swine flu type.

Officials said some jabs would be kept by the drug firm for sale elsewhere. Germany was likely to sell the rest at a discount. Sources say Kosovo, Iran, Turkey, Ukraine and other nations have already inquired with Berlin about likely price.

Mechthild Ross-Luttmann, health minister of Lower Saxony state, said the supplier, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), agreed at a Berlin meeting with key health ministers to let Germany prune back the contract.

'The drugs company indicated it would drop the bulk of the unneeded deliveries as a matter of goodwill,' she said. 'The chances are good that we'll reach an agreement on this that suits all parties.'

Germany originally promised to pay 416.5 million euros (nearly 600 million dollars) for 50 million single doses from various manufacturers.

Doctors say Germans are so wary of vaccines that it would be impossible to coax 60 per cent of them to accept vaccination. With H1N1 less deadly than first feared, it is even proving hard to persuade 30 per cent of people to take the shots.