Tweet
USA: Incinerate 40 million expired H1N1 vaccines
Preparations are discarded as waste has a value of approximately $ 260 million.
AP - 02/07/2010 - 10:34
Some 40 million swine influenza vaccines produced for the U.S. population-quarter of all existing, shall be destroyed because it expired, which means that preparations for an approximate value of $ 260 million will be discarded as trash.
"Too much, in historical terms," said Jerry Weir, who oversees the investigation and review of vaccines for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, for its acronym in English).
The vaccine obsolete, some of which expired on Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, more than double the usual leftovers, set a record.
Some 30 million more doses later and may expire unused, according to a government estimate. If all this vaccine expires, over 43% of supply for the U.S. population will be spoiled.
Federal authorities claimed that the huge amount of vaccine was purchased as a necessary risk in preparation for the worst possible scenarios of progress in the country of swine flu, a virus never before seen.
Many health experts had feared that the new flu could be deadly global epidemic which had warned long ago, but ended up killing fewer people than seasonal flu.
"Although there were many doses of vaccine were not used, was much more appropriate have been prepared for the worst that having too few doses," said Bill Hall, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services U.S..
The government produced 162 million vaccines for the general population. Others included 36 million doses for the military and other countries