GSK’s medical director in Jeddah Mohammed Sulaiman told Arab News that there are currently no problems in their relationship with either the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) or the Ministry of Health.
“We have had no problems with the Ministry of Health or concerned bodies relating to any problems with vaccines,” Sulaiman said, adding that there is nothing wrong with the vaccines themselves apart from normal side effects. “We have been supplying vaccines in Saudi Arabia and other countries around the world without incident.”
Sulaiman also said that the original contract for supplying 4.4 million doses of the vaccine is still ongoing. “We have supplied a majority of the vaccine according to our original contract with the Ministry of Health and are currently in negotiations to supply the remainder soon,” he said.
An Arabic daily earlier this week had quoted Saleh Bawazir, vice president of drug affairs at the SFDA, asking the Ministry of Health to destroy 200,000 doses of vaccine because they did not adhere to the Kingdom’s regulations. The newspaper also reported that Bawazir had claimed that the faulty vaccines were only in one suspect shipment and that the rest of the jabs were fine. He added that despite this the SFDA was still committed to its responsibility of inspecting all vaccines and medication in the Kingdom.
Arab News tried to contact Bawazir but he was unavailable for comment.
Saudi Arabia is currently using the Pandemrix brand of the H1N1 vaccine, which is manufactured in Belgium by GSK. Last month the Kingdom started to offer swine flu vaccines to people of all ages in an effort to reduce the impact of an expected third wave of the illness.
Ministry of Health figures reveal there have been at least 15,500 cases of swine flu in the Kingdom, including 124 deaths. Ministry of Health spokesman Khaled Al-Mirghalani told Arab News that he was unaware of any problems between the ministry and GSK and to his knowledge the relationship was “healthy”.
