Swiss court forces Covid vaccine procurement transparency
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has been forced to publish unredacted contracts for procuring Covid vaccines during the pandemic.
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Swiss court forces Covid vaccine procurement transparency
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The move follows a February court ruling that obliged the government to publish the contracts with Moderna and Navax without redactions.
The FOPH has decided not to lodge an appeal against the transparency ruling.
The plaintiffs had requested access, under the Transparency Act, to the contracts concluded by the FOPH and the army pharmacy for the Covid vaccines. This request was rejected by the Federal Office at the end of 2023.
In 2022, the FOPH published the contracts concluded with the vaccine manufacturers Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer, Janssen, AstraZeneca and CureVac only after redacting them.
The move was prompted by fears that disclosure of the contracts only in Switzerland would place Switzerland at a negotiating disadvantage when it comes to supplying vaccines in the event of a future pandemic.
Nearly a billion dollars
According to the FOPH, Switzerland was able to reserve the first 4.5 million doses of vaccine from Moderna in August 2020. By the end of the Covid pandemic, this figure had risen to 31 million doses of mRNA vaccine at a cost of around $32 per dose. This equated to a financial commitment of around $980 million.
According to the FOPH, one million doses of Novavax protein vaccine have been reserved for December 2021 at a price of $22 per dose. Switzerland paid around $20 million for these vaccines.
Adapted from German by AI/mga
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