The 2009/10 swine flu epidemic cost Dutch taxpayers €144m in unused vaccines, according to RTL television news.

Some 20 million doses of vaccine costing €7.20 each were thrown away as the epidemic waned and they reached their use-by date, the news programme claims. The government has always kept the cost of the vaccines – bought from Novartis and GSK – secret.
In total, the government ordered 34 million vaccines – enough to give two doses to the entire population.

Warnings
Last year, RTL reported the then health minister Ab Klink ignored advice from both the Dutch vaccine and public health institutes when he bought so many doses.
The tv programme said the vaccine institute told Klink that two shots per person would be unnecessary. And the public health institute warned Klink delivery would be too late for a mass vaccination programme.
In the end only young children, the elderly and some categories of workers were vaccinated. In January 2010, the government began trying to sell the vaccines to other countries.
Deaths
It emerged last year that the country’s chief virologist Ab Osterhaus, who advised the government to buy a double dose of the vaccine, has close links to drugs firms. He denied any conflict of interest.
In total, 63 people died of swine flu in the Netherlands and nearly 2,200 people were hospitalised.
The new health minister Edith Schippers told MPs on Thursday she would commission an independent report into the involvement of the pharmaceuticals industry on the Dutch decision to buy two doses of vaccine per head of the population. A majority of MPs had called for the investigation.