Ministry considers returning excess flu vaccine

TALLINN - After the alarm sounded a few months ago, when, according to estimates, swine flu was about to hit Estonia hard, the situation has settled allowing for a reassessment of what happened, and of what to do with the excess stock of flu vaccine held.

Estonia bought, between December and January, some 250,000 dosages of the vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus, a number that, by now, is five times larger than the quantity used. According to data from the Health Board, by February 2010, only 50,000 vaccinations were carried out in Estonia, leaving an impressive surplus of a vaccine that, if kept within the country, would risk becoming useless.

One of the possible ways out of this impasse could be a massive donation of the majority of the unused doses to the World Health Organization, leaving the WHO then with the task of distributing those dosages to countries still in need of help. The Social Affairs Ministry is considering either returning the 200,000 or so doses of the new flu vaccine to the manufacturers, or donating them to the WHO.

Estonia is now offering the vaccine to residents for free.
For the new season, a new seasonal flu vaccine will be worked on, that according to the WHO, contains the stem of the A/H1N1 virus.

Jarno Habicht, the Estonian representative of the WHO, said that co-ordination of humanitarian aid was one of the tasks of the organization, and the WHO is trying to send the vaccine to as many countries as possible so that it would be available to people worldwide on a fairer basis. He said that more than ten countries were ready to donate their surplus vaccine to the WHO but that Estonia had not made a formal offer yet.
While the WHO’s  initial goal was to ensure availability of the vaccine in poor countries, now it is working to make it available also in medium-income countries. “This means that, to a large degree, the vaccine will be moving outside the European region - to Asia and South America,” Habicht said. He said there were still a number of countries that hadn’t received any vaccine at all.”

Estonia will make final calculations this month as to how much of the vaccine is redundant. Martin Kadai, adviser at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said that the ministry did not deny the intention to discuss possible donations to the World Health Organization, and that the issue is still being discussed.