The Foundation for the Defense of the Citizen Against State Abuses (FACIAS) asked the Ministry of Health for extensive information about the COVID 19 vaccination campaign, such as the number of doses purchased, the number of doses used, the number of doses donated, the number of doses sold, the costs of the doses purchased, sold, etc. The Ministry responded to the request with exact data on certain questions, but when it came to costs, confidentiality was invoked.
The Ministry of Health reports that 35,455,180 doses of vaccine were purchased of which 16,919,549 doses were administered. Of the remaining doses, 8,815,139.5 doses have expired, about 3.5 million have been sold and about 2.2 million donated to other countries. The ministry says it will try to cancel all the doses that Romania has yet to receive this year.
As for the cost of purchasing the vaccines, the revenue from their sale, the value of the expired doses or the cost of their destruction, the Health Ministry tells FACIAS that this information cannot be disclosed because of a confidentiality clause signed by Romania.
Legal action, the last resort for normality
In this context, we wonder how it is possible that a public institution in Romania that bought these vaccines has the right to hide the money spent, especially as the money used is public money. In addition, it is not at all negligible that less than half of the vaccine doses purchased with huge sums of money were used.
For this reason, FACIAS has asked the Ministry of Health in court to declassify the contracts for the purchase of the Covid 19 vaccine, believing that this action would be the last resort to ensure that this information reaches the public, who have in fact borne the costs.
The Ministry of Health's full response can be read at www.facias.ro.