Serbia halts purchases of flu A/H1N1 vaccines

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Serbia halts purchases of flu A/H1N1 vaccines

12 Jan 2010 17:46:59 GMT
<!-- 12 Jan 2010 17:46:59 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove -->Source: Reuters

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BELGRADE, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Serbian authorities decided on Tuesday to put on hold purchases of A/H1N1 flu vaccines from Switzerland's Novartis AG <NOVN.VX>due to a lack of popular response to the government's vaccination campaign, an official said.

Serbia has already imported about 850,000 doses of vaccines or about 28 percent of a total of 3 million doses agreed with Novartis in November, Tomica Milosavljevic, the health minister, said.

"We will continue with vaccination and we hope that the response will grow ... there are enough vaccines in stock until February when we will reassess situation and decide about more purchases," Milosavljevic said.

In November, the government in Belgrade, Novartis and its Serbian representative, the Belgrade-based Jugohemija, agreed over a price of 8 euros per dose.

Since Dec. 17, Serbian health authorities have inoculated 133,000 people or about 1.7 percent of the 7.3 million-strong population.

Milosavljevic said a special working group tasked with combating the disease proposed the creation of a permanent stock of flu vaccines of about 300,000 doses.

So far, 68 people in Serbia have died from pandemic flu, while 671 patients tested positive. According to official data, 384 people are hospitalised with severe flu-like symptoms.

The Public Health Institute believes thousands have been infected but with mild symptoms. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by David Holmes)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE60B291.htm

 

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Re: Serbia halts purchases of flu A/H1N1 vaccines

Serbia Cancels Further Vaccine Imports

Belgrade | 27 January 2010 | <!-- Author Start -->Bojana Barlovac<!-- Author End -->
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Children in the town of Cacak, Serbia (photo by FoNet)

<!-- Article Start -->Serbian Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic has announced that further deliveries of the swine flu vaccine will be cancelled.

In an interview with the Tanjug news agency, Milosavljevic said that the country's government has paid for all 857,500 swine flu vaccines shots that were delivered to Serbia.

?Serbia paid for 857,500 doses. Out of that amount, 160,000 were administered to citizens,? the agency quoted Milosavljevic as saying. He added that the country needs to have 300,000 doses in its permanent reserves in case the epidemiological situation deteriorates.

Earlier in January, Serbia's government decided to stop further procurement of swine flu vaccines until further notice due to low interest among the public for vaccination.

Serbia has registered 690 swine flu cases so far and has experienced 79 fatalities from the virus. The Serbian government signed a contract to purchase three million doses of vaccines against the infection from Swiss manufacturer Novartis. Immediately after signing the contract, the government declared a swine flu epidemic on 11 November, meaning that a nationwide emergency vaccination process could then be carried out.

Vaccination in Serbia kicked off on December 17 with the health minister being the first to receive a jab in an effort to allay fears about the vaccine?s safety. The country's president, Boris Tadic, has also been innoculated. Twenty-three out of 144,043 people that have been vaccinated in the country have reported side effects, according to media.

According to the minister, the amount of the shots in the country at the moment is sufficient to continue the vaccination process.

On Tuesday, Novartis warned countries not to cancel their orders for the vaccine, stressing that priority in a future epidemic would be given to those states which honored their contract obligations.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/25273/