2023-12-04 17:16:39
Covid infections in Italy are increasing while the vaccine campaign is struggling to take off, amid protests from citizens and family doctors who cannot find the doses. The response from the Prevention Directorate of the Ministry of Health was immediate, convening the Regions tomorrow – according to what time.news Salute has learned – for an extraordinary control room on the topic of vaccinations and on the hypothesis of national open days to relaunch them in a more robust. We also want to understand why anti-Covid vaccinations are not proceeding uniformly in the various territories.
Anti-covid vaccine and open day, what the experts think
But what do the experts think? “I agree with the idea, which seems excellent to me, of the director of Prevention Francesco Vaia to return to vaccination open days for Covid, also to simplify the procedures. I understand that there are people, including elderly people, who reside in different regions from their own that they cannot be vaccinated due to different demographics. I believe that it is a good idea to bring back the open days also by reactivating the regional hubs. The percentage of vaccinated people over 80 is really low, let’s hurry.” This is what Matteo Bassetti, director of infectious diseases at the San Martino polyclinic hospital in Genoa, told time.news Salute.
“Today the part of the system that ‘suffers’ the most from the growth of Covid infections is not intensive care but ordinary hospitalizations”, points out Massimo Ciccozzi, head of the Medical Statistics and Epidemiology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Campus Bio-Medical of Rome. The idea of holding vaccination open days or similar strategies therefore “could bring vaccination closer to the elderly and the frail who have not yet been immunised. After the age of 75, significant respiratory infections, if you are not vaccinated, both against Covid that the flu shot can cause problems and even hospitalization.”
“Let’s clarify one thing: if there is no certainty of having had the Covid disease, therefore a positive swab, the vaccine should be done – explains Ciccozzi – If instead there is certainty, you can wait 4 months, but if in doubt, and considering the case of an elderly person, it is better to get immunised. There are no problems from an immunological point of view.”
“Adherence to the anti-Covid vaccination in Italy is really poor and it is sad that this is the case.” As well as the fact that “in some regions, I heard today in Lazio but I believe also in others, there are no vaccines or in any case there are difficulties in accessing vaccination and therefore even those who wish to get vaccinated are having difficulty doing so. Initiatives such as the vaccination open days”, the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco told time.news Salute. “Covid is growing”, he warns. And “if it is true that in the vast majority of cases it is not serious, in the elderly, in the subject at risk, in the elderly at risk who perhaps has not been vaccinated or is tired of vaccinating, it can still end up killing. the 300 deaths last week”, recalls the professor from the State University of Milan.
“Welcome to the Open days”, he says, commenting on Vaia’s line. Pregliasco, however, also hopes for “institutional communication and further methods of offering. For example – underlines the doctor, medical director of the Irccs Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio hospital in Milan – in Lombardy the hospitals were told to seize the opportunity of hospitalization for carry out the vaccination. It is then necessary to make the distribution of vaccines more efficient.”
“We had already said, at the time of the previous minister” of Health, “that communication about Covid and confusion about vaccines would have created distrust in citizens. And here is the result: people, after everything they have heard about vaccines, affirmed and denied, and what was unfairly hidden, he now has an attitude of total refusal. He no longer believes in these vaccines, which would not have happened if the communication had been clear and transparent.” Word of Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bioemergency diagnostics at the Sacco hospital in Milan.
“Unfortunately we now find ourselves having to think about vaccination Open days again”, underlines the expert, “not because we are in the Covid situation of the first Open days, but to try to bring people together and make them understand what vaccination is for. I hope that the elderly and frail can soon decide to vaccinate themselves and be vaccinated, because the ministry – underlines Gismondo – has very wisely decided not to force anyone anymore, but to inform correctly. We hope – the specialist comments – that we will be able to mitigate the errors of the previous management”.
“Reactivating open days for anti-Covid vaccination seems like an excellent idea, we have difficulty vaccinating people: there are more than 18 million vulnerable people who need vaccination for Covid in Italy. Finding systems that make it more usable and vaccination is simpler is something we need to think about, we are seeing a certain difficulty in vaccinating these patients and therefore the past experience of open days could certainly be a smart initiative to implement”. Thus to time.news Salute Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit) and professor of Infectious Diseases at the Tor Vergata University of Rome.
Family doctors: “Yes to vaccination open day, available to collaborate”
“The vaccination open day to strengthen the anti-Covid campaign may be a good idea, but it is necessary to involve family doctors who can help their patients overcome the ‘vaccination fatigue’ that limits adherence. Without this, a day dedicated to immunization against Covid can only reach that 25% of the population who are already convinced to do it, but who have had few opportunities due to the organizational and distribution difficulties of the doses, which occurred during the campaign”. Silvestro Scotti, national secretary of the Federation of General Practitioners (Fimmg), told time.news Health regarding the hypothesis of a vaccination open day which should be evaluated tomorrow in an extraordinary control room on Covid vaccinations at the Ministry of Health .
Furthermore, for Scotti, to truly strengthen the anti-Covid vaccination campaign it is necessary to “give more vaccines to family doctors who, until now, have not always had them in a consistent number compared to demand and, in any case, not at the right times to allow vaccination to be carried out at the same time as the flu shot, which would have avoided duplicating the vaccination activity, especially at this time of the year when work in general medical clinics is very intense. Many of us have already vaccinated against the flu without having anti-Covid doses. This means that it will be necessary to recall all patients, already immunized for the flu, for whom the vaccine against Sars-CoV-2 is indicated”.
With more vaccines available, however, “a family doctor can administer the anti-Covid vaccine to 40-50% of patients who are vaccinated against the flu – underlines the Fimmg leader – and this thanks to the relationship of trust with his patient and the possibility of informing him personally. From this perspective, if it is decided to organize vaccination open days we are available.”
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