The Netherlands is left with about 17.5 million unnecessary vaccines against the Mexican flu. This was announced by outgoing Minister of Health Ab Klink in the House of Representatives.
Some of the over-ordered Dutch vaccines (257,000 vaccines) for swine flu have been sold to Estonia, Lithuania, Macedonia and Suriname. Klink trying to sell more vaccines to the other countries, but that probably won't work.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) would supply 9 million vaccines. They have already supplied 6 million and after negotiations with Klink it was decided not to make the last 3 million. This saves 21 million euros.
However, the other vaccine manufacturer Novartis delivered 25 million vaccines . by agreement † If not sold, they will be destroyed when the usage date expires. Klink wants to keep only 2.2 million vaccines in stock.
Swine flu outbreak
In June 2009 there will be 34 million vaccines ordered, because a large-scale outbreak of the swine flu was expected. However, only 11 million vaccines were used for risk groups.
