A row in Germany over a “two-tier” swine flu vaccination program has prompted Chancellor Angela Merkel to say she’ll get the jab meant for the public rather than one reserved for “essential workers.”
Criticism over “government-only” flu jabs, reserved for soldiers, policemen and essential workers, comes against the backdrop of a nationwide immunization campaign due to start next week.
The H1N1 virus has so far affected just 23,000 people in Germany, but the government is keen on vaccinating as many people as possible to avoid a possible large-scale outbreak at the start of the winter season.
But revelations in the press that top officials and other essential workers will get the Celvapan vaccine, manufactured by Baxter, which has fewer side effects than the mass Pandemrix vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline has caused a public outcry.
Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm has rejected accusations of a “two-tier medical system,” saying both vaccines have equal worth.
Three vaccines — Pandemrix, Celvapan, and Focetria — have been approved by the EU to fight the swine flu epidemic and “there isn’t a ‘better’ or a ‘worse’ one,” Wilhelm told a news conference on Monday.
Merkel “will be seeing her regular general practitioner, will get his advice and then will be vaccinated” with Pandemrix, the jab meant for the general public, Wilhelm said.
A number of newspapers nevertheless worried that the government was giving the appearance of double standards.
“How can an ordinary citizen understand that a vaccine with fewer side effects has been ordered for ministers than the one intended for the masses,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote.
Health ministry spokesman Klaus Vater said the government had ordered 200,000 vaccines from Baxter last year, in the wake of the bird flu scare, as a precautionary measure to protect essential workers from swine flu.
The government later ordered 50 million vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline to allow for the double dose vaccinations of some 25 million people, about a third of the population.
The specialist for health matters at the social-democratic party, Karl Lauterbach, told the Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper that the Pandemrix jab was not recommended for young children and pregnant women because of possible side effects.
He also strongly criticized the government’s information policy, saying that the present row might lead people to forgo immunization altogether.
Opinion polls have suggested that Germans are not overly concerned about the flu, has killed only two people to date in the country. An Emnit poll said 59 percent of Germans had no fear of the flu.
The EU recently warned against complacency over the spread of swine flu.
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