“Belgium is one of the rare European countries to have vaccinated all the residents of nursing homes that it wanted “, welcomed Alain Maron, Brussels Minister of Health, in the CQFD program (RTBF). “In Brussels, this represents 90% of residents, vaccination in two doses and almost complete in the staff. We are also making good progress in the hospital staff and we are now starting with the other communities. […] We can also wonder if the gradual decrease in hospitalizations of older people is not partly due to the success of this vaccination in nursing homes.“.
He also referred to the delivery issues that are holding back this campaign: “Only Pfizer is able to give us an effective delivery rate several weeks in advance. For all other vaccines, we receive delivery rates week after week“.
“Si we give a vial to a general practitioner, when he opens the vial he will have directly to have ten people in front of him ready to be vaccinated“
For her part Sabine Stordeur, co-head of the Vaccination Taskforce, answered questions about the fact that general practitioners were, for the moment, excluded from the vaccination campaign even though they are probably decisive in giving the population confidence. with regard to vaccines: “We understand the enthusiasm of general practitioners to take part in this vaccination campaign. But in terms of logistics, it’s not just the storage temperature that poses a problem. There is also the fact that the Covid-19 vaccines come in multidose vials. We have vials of ten doses for Moderna or AstraZeneca. Once you pierce the cap of the vial, you should administer all ten doses within six hours. This means that as soon as he opens a bottle, the general practitioner must have ten patients in front of him ready to be vaccinated. And this, with a gap of 15 minutes so that they can be monitored. “
According to Ms. Stordeur, mass vaccination goes through large centers where all vaccines are sent to facilitate logistics. “If you distribute the doses in the consulting rooms, you will have to make 10,000 trips (Editor’s note: to drop off the vaccines) with very small quantities. From a logistical point of view, it will be unmanageable.”
Alain Maron recalled that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be kept at very cold temperatures and therefore could not be entrusted to general practitioners. But he then nuanced the approach. “We have audiences that are difficult to reach, who move more difficult, more desocialized. We are putting in place strategies to reach these audiences. And it seems obvious to me that general medicine must be part of this strategy. the.”
AstraZeneca 94% effective thirty days after injection
In addition, Sabine Stordeur announced interesting results in the United Kingdom, where 1.5 million people have been vaccinated with doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which provides more information on the effectiveness of different vaccines according to age groups but also to reassure on the AstraZeneca: “We now have real data across all age groups that prove Astrazeneca to be as effective as Pfizer and Moderna. But also that, 30 days after the first dose, it already has a degree of effectiveness of 94%. This time around, with so many elderly people, we can tell ourselves that Astrazeneca’s vaccine also works in those over 55. This publication has yet to be formalized“.
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