Five million swine flu doses down the drain, cost: $36m

MORE than five million doses of swine flu vaccine, bought for $140 million last year, will be destroyed by next month because so few have been used.

MORE than five million doses of swine flu vaccine, bought for $140 million last year, will be destroyed by next month because so few have been used.

Of the 21 million doses ordered by the federal government from Melbourne drug giant CSL, 5.5 million are likely to end up in an incinerator - effectively wasting about $36m of the purchase price.

The revelations are contained in the post-election briefings prepared by the Department of Health and Ageing and released yesterday under the Freedom of Information laws.

The so-called Red Book from the department reveals the Gillard government is dragging its feet on approving subsidies for new high-cost drugs.

The department warns Health Minister Nicola Roxon to urgently secure approval for subsidies for five high-cost medicines that treat leukemia, prostate problems and bone marrow disorders.

The subsidies will cut the cost of these medications from up to $400,000 a year to just $33.30 a month, and $5.40 a month for pensioners, but the federal cabinet has yet to grant approval. The incoming government briefs show fewer than half the 21 million swine flu vaccine doses - just 9.1 million - had been distributed to GPs and immunisation centres by the time voters went to the polls in August.

There has continued to be "decreasing demand" for the vaccine since then, even though the nation remained officially on pandemic alert even after the World Health Organisation declared the globe in a "post-pandemic" phase in August.

A further 100,000 doses of the vaccine reached their use-by dates between July and August, and the papers say "consideration is currently being given" to donating a further 3.5 million to the World Health Organisation for distribution to needy countries, on top of the 2.1 million donated last year.

The document said the second donation "will leave approximately four million doses of commonwealth stocks (plus approximately 1.5 million doses held in state and territory stocks) that will need to be destroyed when it expires", which would happen progressively between October 2010 and January 2011. "If the vaccine is held in storage following its expiry, further storage costs may be incurred," the papers warn.

While the destruction itself would incur no further expense as this was covered by the purchase agreement, they said there would be "an accounting expense associated with the write-off of the asset" which it did not stipulate.

The fiasco is not the only swine flu vaccine-related headache for the government, with the papers also including passages implying unspecified legal action has been launched against the government.

The page, considered so sensitive the heading and all but three paragraphs have been blacked out, refers to the Health Department having asked manufacturers in 2005 to quote for supplying 100,000 pandemic influenza vaccination packs. After five censored paragraphs, it then notes the department "is obliged to make good faith endeavours to resolve legal disputes using appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms as an alternative to legal proceedings".

Ms Roxon on Wednesday finally announced the end of the swine flu pandemic in Australia, downgrading the official outbreak phase from "Protect" to "Alert".

The illness caused 44,403 confirmed cases in Australia since May last year, including 6767 this year, but just 213 confirmed deaths.