In face of the "swine flu" issue, "normal seasonal" flu seems to be almost forgotten. The vaccine prices of earlier years, however, are not forgotten. They indicate a remarkable degree of inflation. The cost of 10 injections of RATIOPHARM's seasonal influenza vaccine is given below as example*:
2005/2006 |
2006/2007 |
2007/2008 |
2008/2009 |
2009/2010 |
91.39 € |
100.53 € |
138.34 € |
161.02 € |
172.50 € |
Price inflation from 2005/06 to 2009/10 is 89%. To the rest of the economy (e.g. the automobile or electrical industry), a price increase of almost 90% over four years would mean the ruin of the sector, but not in the pharmaceutical sector where it is predominantly the solidarity-based community that pays. It cannot really be caused by the price of the chicken eggs in which the vaccine is cultured, can it?
W. WILMS (Drug Information Pharmacist)
52074 Aachen, Germany
Conflict of interests: none
|