Swine flu pandemic blunder in Britain costs the nation a1.2 billion pounds bill, including 1 billion in drugs which were never used.

An independent review of the pandemic published Thursday said that British officials spent 654 million pounds preparing for a possible pandemic of H1N1 influenza and 587 million pounds in response to the outbreak.

The report said the total amount included 1.01 billion pounds spent on drugs including antivirals, vaccines and antibiotics.

The review was conducted by former senior medical official Deirdre Hine who described the government’s response as “proportionate and effective”. However, he said, inflexible contracts for vaccine left Britain with many extra doses.

Dame Deirdre’s review team said they could not reveal how much money would have been saved if there had been a break clause in the contract because of commercial confidentiality.

Ministers decided in May last year to procure enough swine flu vaccine for the entire UK population on the basis of scientific advice at the time that two doses were needed for protection against the virus.

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said last summer that as many as 65,000 people could die from the disease.

The planning failures left officials with a surplus of up to 20?million doses of vaccine ordered at the height of the swine flu outbreak last year.

The UK lost 457 people due to swine flu pandemic between the outbreak in April last year and March this year.

The World Health Organization says more than 17,000 people have died worldwide since swine flu emerged in April 2009.

ML/HE