Russia is running out of children's vaccines against polio, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough

Russian regions are running out of vaccine to prevent diphtheria, whooping cough, hemophilus influenzae, polio and tetanus, sources in the pharmaceutical market told Kommersant. We are talking about the Pentaxim vaccine developed by Sanofi, which is produced and supplied to government agencies for the national calendar of preventive vaccinations (NCPP) by the Nanolek company. Sources say vaccine supplies are running low in more than fifteen regions and they are asking for new batches to be sent “as soon as possible.” However, Nanolek, which signed a contract for the supply of Pentaxim for 6.2 billion rubles, cannot do this, since the Ministry of Health has not approved the volume of supplies for 2024. Manufacturers will not produce vaccines without understanding the needs of the state, noted Alexey Fedorov, an expert at the All-Russian Patients' Union. Due to a shortage of vaccines in Russia, from January to September of this year, the incidence of measles (by 28,732%, to 8,073 cases), whooping cough (by 1,096%, to 20 thousand cases) and chicken pox (by 18%, to 580 cases) increased record-breakingly. thousand cases). The shortage of vaccines is due to a failure in the planning of the Ministry of Health - the department did not have time to adjust the production schedule in time for new volumes, said Larisa Popovich, director of the Institute of Health Economics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.