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THE World Health Organisation’s advice during the H1N1 flu pandemic played a part in governments around the world stockpiling billions of dollars worth of antiviral drugs as part of global pandemic preparations.
As a result, WHO’s reputation has been severely damaged. This is what two reports, both of which came out in April, have charged.
One report is by journalists at the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal).
The other is by the health committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace).
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) is among those who have spent millions on H1N1 vaccine.
The ministry bought 1.3 million doses of the vaccine last year, when fears of a dreaded pandemic were high.
There are over 850,000 doses of the vaccine left as of May 31, said MOH. They will expire next April.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan wrote in one of his blog entries: “Because nobody can tell beforehand how the pandemic will pan out, countries will try to order as many vaccines as they can afford. No health minister will want to be seen to be short of vaccines for their people.”
Disposed of
Elsewhere, the United Kingdom ordered enough vaccines for 80 per cent of the population to have two doses. Only about 15 per cent will be used.
The rest will be junked by the end of this year, said Mr Paul Flynn, socialist member of the assembly and Labour MP for Newport West.
Mr Flynn authored the Pace review on how the H1N1 pandemic was handled.
He said: “This was a pandemic that never really was.”
In reply to e-mail questions from The New Paper, he said: “I am greatly concerned about the advice the WHO gave and the consequences of that alarming advice,” he said.
BMJ’s editor-in-chief Dr Fiona Godlee pointed out that three scientists out of 22 who worked on the guidelines were named as having received some money from pharmaceutical companies.
AWHOspokesman responded to the BMJ report vaguely, saying that declarations of interest are submitted by all experts who attend WHO expert committee meetings.
But Nature News refuted some of the claims made by Mr Flynn and Dr Godlee.
It said that many countries – including the United Kingdom – had placed large orders for H1N1 vaccine weeks before the WHO declared H1N1 a pandemic on June 11 last year.
The United States, for example, ordered US$649 million (S$908 million) of pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine antigen and $283 million of adjuvant on May 22 last year.
So the WHO could not have influenced the purchases in any way, it said.
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