Mike Swain
Mirror.co.uk
07/02/2010
The swine flu scare cost £1.2billion – as a vaccine firm cashed in.
The taxpayer footed the bill which included 20 million unused vaccines.
GlaxoSmithKline made £883million from sales of the drug last year but insisted the Government complete the deal even if the vaccines were no longer needed.
An independent report yesterday slammed the “inflexible” contracts.
Britain spent £654million preparing for a pandemic and £587million to respond to an H1N1 outbreak.
The £1.24billion total included £1.01billion on drugs, among them antivirals, vaccines and antibiotics. Between the outbreak, from April 2009 to March this year, there were 457 reported and confirmed swine flurelated deaths across the UK.
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