Doctors, nurses and frail elderly people. They will be the first to receive the Covid vaccine doses that should be available by the end of January. Even if it is hoped to be able to start the administration as early as December. Gianni Rezza, general director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, confirms that he is already working on the implementation of the vaccination plan from the point of view of public health: priority allocation, identification of vaccination targets, sites, who and where to vaccinate. Rezza also specified that the logistics will be handled by Commissioner Domenico Arcuri. Commissioner Arcuri therefore has the task of overcoming the problems related to conservation at minus 80 degrees. “There is some problem for the cold chain for the distribution of the Covid vaccine but it was known and the ministry was not found not ready for these aspects of logistics”, assures Franco Locatelli, president of the Superior Health Council who recalled that in addition to the prophylaxis in preparation at Pfizer “there are also other vaccines that are coming”, alluding to the candidate of Astrazeneca which should guarantee Italy 3 million doses by the first of next year.
One million and 700 thousand doses are immediately available and will go to health workers: over 400 thousand doctors and about 350 thousand nurses. Then 13.5 million will arrive thanks to the European agreement with Pfizer for 300 million doses which assigns 27 to our country. The dose to achieve immunity is double. The accounts are easy: the elderly population over 70 in Italy exceeds 11 million citizens so they will be the ones to absorb almost all of the doses in 2021. The younger population will probably have to wait longer.
For mass administration, clinics and vaccination centers will obviously enter the scene. In the front row also family doctors who will implement the same operation envisaged for flu vaccinations. For now, administration in the pharmacy is not contemplated due to the risks associated with any side effects: vaccination is a medical procedure that requires safety procedures that cannot be guaranteed in the pharmacy.
For the part that belongs to him, Arcuri yesterday urged local authorities to identify sites for the storage of vaccines in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies.
–
