Vaccine delay raises swine flu death fears

Romanians have been delayed access to swine flu vaccinations and there is a fear that they could be susceptible to the disease during the coldest months of the year

December 2009 - From the Print Edition

Around 1,800 cases of swine flu have been acknowledged in Romania, including two fatalities, by the time The Diplomat went to press.
Those with the flu have been prescribed paracetamol and told to stay at home, as the Romanian authorities only started the vaccination process at the end of November.
The Government has not imported vaccines against the swine flu, because Romanian state-owned medical research institute Dr I Cantacuzino manufactured its own vaccine last October.
Because the institute needed several weeks to test the new product and to produce the first 1.3 million doses, this delayed the distribution of the vaccine by two months.
“The immunisation period after a patient takes the vaccine lasts between four and six weeks, time in which that person can get the flu,” says general manager of pharma company Roche Romania Dan Zamonea. “It is rather late to administer the vaccines starting in December since the vaccination period against the regular seasonal flu virus, for example, has already ended.”
Meanwhile Geza Molnar, president of the Romanian Society for Epidemiology, told paper Evenimentul Zilei that the number of cases of deaths caused by the swine flu is much higher, but such information has not revealed due to political electoral reasons. Molnar estimated actual figures for cases could be as high as 30,000.
The economic crisis has crippled the Ministry of Public Health’s budget, and the healthcare system is on the edge of collapse. This is one reason why the Government has decided not to import vaccines, which are ten times more expensive than the Romanian product.