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.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine last year while fighting under contract for the Russian military, an investigation by independent Russian media said. Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on April 4 last year in “Eastern Europe,” an obituary published by his family said. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA in February last year. The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of
RSS