Dame Deirdre Hine says UK's swine flu response was 'proportionate and effective'
Britain spent more than £1.2 billion preparing for and responding to the swine flu pandemic, an independent review has found.
Dame Deirdre Hine, a former chief medical officer for Wales, said the UK's response to last year's outbreak was "proportionate and effective".
But she highlighted the lack of flexibility in the contracts signed by the Government for vaccines against the H1N1 virus, meaning that Britain was left with many doses it did not need.
There were 457 reported and confirmed swine flu-related deaths across the UK between the outbreak in April last year and March this year.
Figures in the report show that Britain spent £654 million preparing for a possible flu pandemic, and £587 million responding to the H1N1 outbreak - a total of £1.24 billion.
This includes £1.01 billion on drugs, among them anti-virals, doses of vaccine and antibiotics.
The report said there was a lack of flexibility once the Department of Health (DoH) signed contracts for swine flu vaccine with drug manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Baxter.
Baxter agreed to a "break clause" allowing the Government to cancel its order for some of the doses but GSK refused. The report noted that the DoH eventually agreed to take 35 million doses of the vaccine from GSK.
Dame Deirdre's review team said they could not reveal how much money would have been saved if there had been a break clause in the contract because of commercial confidentiality.
Ministers decided in May last year to procure enough swine flu vaccine for the entire UK population on the basis of scientific advice at the time that two doses were needed for protection against the virus.
By The Press Association
