The actual cost of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Flanders was €44.63 per person, down from €61.85 at the start of the campaign, according to the Flemish Minister of Finance and Budget Matthias Diependaele (N-VA) and Minister of Welfare and Public Health Wouter Beke (CD&V).
The figures are for the basic campaign, and don’t take into account the campaign for booster vaccination, Belga news agency reports.
When Flanders and the federal government first drew up plans for the vaccination campaign, they estimated it’d cost €91.67 per person, which includes the price of the vaccines themselves, the vaccination centres and also the awareness campaign.
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The Flemish share in that estimate was €61.85 per basic vaccination, but because of the higher vaccination rate in Flanders, the Flemish government was able to spread its fixed costs over more people, so the actual cost came out to €44.63, according to Diependaele and Beke.
Costs were lower due to volunteers and high vaccination rates
“Not only did we incur fewer costs than anticipated in the vaccination centres in Flanders, we also achieved a higher vaccination coverage than initially expected,” the pair said.
“In the calculations, we assumed 4.5 million Flemings, while in the meantime 4.8 million Flemings have already received the shot.”
The total cost of the vaccine, spread across all authorities, is therefore €74.45 instead of €91.67. Flanders’ share of the basic campaign cost was €214 million euros, much lower than the initial, theoretical estimate of €290 million.
“The cost of the medical personnel especially turned out to be lower than expected, because relatively speaking many more volunteers came to help than initially thought – as Flemings we can be very proud of that,” the ministers said. “Our volunteers were also our best ambassadors. We can be genuinely proud of that.”
