The process of universal vaccination of all Portuguese people against covid-19 will take place entirely in the infrastructures of the NHS: first in health centers and then in other facilities, possibly even in field hospitals and other similar infrastructures.
The plan will be announced on Thursday. And Infarmed’s headquarters in Lisbon will be the center of the universe. At 10.00, another (the 13th) presentation session on the “Epidemiological situation of covid-19 in Portugal” is called.
In the afternoon, in the same space, the national vaccination plan against covid-19 will be presented. There will be a technical presentation and then the plan will be revealed by the head of government.
This Wednesday, at Palácio da Ajuda, António Costa met with the team that prepared the plan, coordinated by the former Secretary of State for Health (and former President of the IPO) Francisco Ramos. In addition to the Minister of Health, the ministers of State and Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, Internal Administration, Eduardo Cabrita, and National Defense, João Gomes Cravinho, as well as the Assistant Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, Tiago Antunes.
After the meeting, the Health Minister warned, in statements to journalists, that “the process [de vacinação] it will be long “, so, until it is finished, it is imperative” not to depart “from the current health protection rules (wearing a mask, social distance, breathing discipline).
The general outline of the plan was revealed by Luís Marques Mendes, on Sunday, at SIC, and the DN confirmed that the essential part of the plan is the one that the State Councilor discovered.
Start with “greatest scarcity”
The vaccine will be free, universal and voluntary – and will not be available through pharmacies (as currently with the flu vaccine). First, it will start from the health centers. But then this process can be extended to other SNS facilities, perhaps even provisional ones (field hospitals, for example).
The start of the process, acknowledged Marta Temido, will take place in a “context of greater scarcity”; but then “larger scenarios” will emerge – that is, the flow of supply will increase throughout the year.
The elderly (starting with those in homes) will be at the top of the agenda. Then home professionals, health professionals, security forces and civil protection agents.
Six different vaccine brands will be made available over time: Pfizer (4.5 million doses), AstraZeneca (6.9 million), Moderna (1.9), Johnson & Johnson (4.5), Curevac (4 million ) and Sanofi-GSK (no figures yet). Those from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca will imply two doses (with an interval of three to four weeks) and the one from Johnson & Johnson is already known to be a single dose.
Distribution is centralized by the EU in Brussels – meaning that Portugal will start receiving vaccines at the same time as the other member states. Vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca (Oxford) and Moderna will already be very close to being validated by EMA (European Medicines Agency).
Pfizer’s was approved on Wednesday by the British “Infarmed”, the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which thus became the first Western health authority to approve a vaccine against the disease.
Military coordinate distribution
As will happen in countries like the USA, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium, Portugal should also have the Armed Forces in charge of the distribution operation.
Storage must be guaranteed by Infarmed, as it is the only entity that has logistical capacity with cold rooms for these vaccines.
Civil protection will also have a role to play in supporting district and municipal structures, although the plan is not yet closed at this level.
To what the DN found with several sources that are monitoring this process, the Minister of Internal Administration, Eduardo Cabrita, has defended that it should be the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection to coordinate the logistical and distribution mega-operation of the vaccines, but his Defense counterpart, João Cravinho, understands that it must be the Armed Forces General Staff to do so.
Cravinho has remembered the success of the various operations, within the scope of the fight against the pandemic, coordinated by EMGFA, as is the case of the training actions for employees of the elderly homes or the support to the Regional Health Administration of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, in the management of beds for covid patients in Lisbon hospitals.
Portugal accounts for at least 4645 deaths associated with covid-19 in 303 846 confirmed cases of infection, according to the latest bulletin from Directorate-General for Health.
On Friday, Parliament is expected to approve another biweekly extension of the state of emergency. On Saturday the government will announce the containment measures for the next month – thus covering Christmas and New Year.
