242,000 swine flu jabs remain unused

A total of 90,366 persons have taken the H1N1 vaccine but another 242,000 doses remain available, Health Minister Joseph Cassar has said in Parliament.

He said the vaccine would continue to be administered to those who requested it.

Dr Cassar said the World Health Organisation was of the view that H1Ni had not peaked yet, and people should take the vaccine.

The Times reported last month that the Department of Health was trying to cancel a shipment of a batch of 80,000 jabs, which forms part of a total order for 425,000 vaccines.

Moreover, the authorities recently decided that children did not need two doses of the vaccine, as originally thought, which should leave Malta with even more unused jabs.

Asked whether the two factors had prompted the government to consider cancelling jabs that had still not arrived, a Health Department spokesman said they had, although Malta was obliged to take the whole lot.

Malta had bought the doses of the H1N1 jab from British pharmaceutical company GSK in December for between €3 and €3.5 million. The first batch of 100,000 arrived at the end of last year and a second batch of another 100,000 arrived in January.

Several countries have reported being saddled with thousands of vaccines.