by Andrea Gebbia
After Covid, another health emergency is making its way: monkeypox. Considering the cases of infection per million inhabitants, Switzerland is one of the most affected countries, even ranking sixth in this ranking, as reported by Alexandra Calmyan infectious disease specialist at the Geneva University Hospital, interviewed by the French-speaking Swiss television RTS.
Growing contagions
The Aargauer Zeitung reports that, in the past three months, around 380 people have become infected with monkeypox virus in Switzerland and every week the cases increase by 50 units. There are over 36,000 confirmed patients worldwide. According to the website of the SFOP (Federal Office of Public Health, the Swiss ministry of health), at the moment the group of the population most affected is men who have sex with other men.
Unavailable
But Switzerland, land of pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis and Roche, should be able to overcome without problems the pitfalls associated with this virus, which is not unknown. Or not? The Imvanex vaccineproduced by the German-Danish Bavarian Nordic Society, recognized as the right medicine to combat this new scourge, unfortunately, however, it is not (yet) available in the Swiss Confederation! This is why the Pink Cross association asked the government to declare a state of emergency for monkeypox (as happened with Covid at the beginning of the pandemic), so as to be able to speed up the approval and procurement procedures of the vaccine.
Bureaucracy and little income
The Swiss ministry has not yet definitively decided on the massive purchase of doses of this preparation and in addition the pharmaceutical company itself does not want to sell its ampoules in Switzerland. As confirmed at Aargauer Zeitung by Athanasios Zikopoulos, CEO of the private pharmaceutical company Lipomed, which produces near Basel, that of Bavarian Nordic is not an isolated case.
Swiss business is unattractive to drug companies. The process for approval of a drug by Swissmedic (which corresponds to Aifa in Italy) lasts on average the beauty of 650 days according to Interpharma, the association of pharmaceutical research companies in Switzerland. Plus a medicine maker has too much little flexibility in setting prices, strictly regulated by the governmental regulations of the Swiss Confederation. Add to this the fact that the Swiss market is small and the limited salesit is understandable why many pharmaceutical companies prefer not to distribute their preparations in Switzerland, which paradoxically instead can boast some of the main pharma giants in its territory.