Health Ministry holds Press-conference on Vaccines declaration Issue

“As Health Ministry, we are responsible for the quality of MMR vaccines and criteria for their procurement. We will do everything within the frameworks of our action and if it is shown that there’s been an oversight, the possibility of terminating all contracts with the company that is the importer and distributor of MMR vaccines and of revoking the operating licence will be reviewed,” Minister Venko Filipce said at a press-conference on Tuesday, after the company had said that old declarations had been applied to small part of the packages by using the previous import date, that is, October 2018. According to him, the quality of all vaccines is good and they are made by an original producer, GlaxoSmithKline. As Filipce explained, just 1% of the total number of distributed vaccines from that series have a declaration containing an older date. “Vaccines with this date have been found in Zeleznicar Polyclinic and in the Health Homes in Demir Hisar, Veles and Sveti Nikole,” he pointed out. In cooperation with the Medicines Bureau, Filipce added, there will be activities to identify the reasons behind the technical mistake, while the company has already announced it is conducting an internal investigation.