RM14mil for A(H1N1) vaccine

Star: PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry is spending RM14mil to purchase 400,000 doses of influenza A(H1N1) vaccine.
The first batch of 40,000 doses would arrive by the end of this month, said minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
Speaking to reporters after opening GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Global IT Centre yesterday, he said the ministry decided to purchase the vaccine from GSK as the company could meet the earliest delivery time.
Some firms could only provide the vaccine in mid-2010, he said, adding that the ministry had yet to fix the selling price per dose for the vaccine.
He had also noted previously that the vaccine would be for frontliners first such as health workers, the police and immigration staff.
Liow stressed that the public must take precautionary measures although H1N1 cases were on the decline and no deaths had been reported since Sept 16. The outbreak, he said, was still at Level 6.
Yesterday, 152 patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) were admitted nationwide while 146 people had been discharged.
Out of the 666 cases in hospital, only 4% or 27 are confirmed H1N1 cases.