FOPH ready to publish Covid vaccine purchase contracts
Keystone-SDA
The Swiss government is now ready to disclose its contracts for the purchase of Covid vaccines. On Monday, it announced that it would not appeal against the Federal Administrative Court’s decision in support of disclosure.
However, the vaccine manufacturers concerned may appeal against this decision in order to protect their professional, commercial and manufacturing secrets, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) said on Monday.
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Under the Transparency Act, the plaintiffs had requested access to the contracts concluded between the FOPH and the army pharmacy for the Covid vaccines. The FOPH rejected these requests at the end of 2023.
In a judgement published in February, the Federal Administrative Court stated that no exceptional grounds specified in the law were met that would allow access to be denied. In particular, there was no reason to fear that Switzerland’s foreign policy interests would be jeopardised.
Furthermore, no evidence of an interest in confidentiality regarding prices, delivery conditions and other points had been provided.
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In 2022, the FOPH had published the contracts concluded with the vaccine manufacturers Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer, Janssen, AstraZeneca and CureVac, redacting certain information. The FOPH feared that disclosing the contracts in Switzerland alone would put the government in a poor position to negotiate the purchase of vaccines in the event of a future pandemic.
Adapted from French by AI/ac
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