“Just Open Day. Vaccinating in family doctors’ offices to focus on the quality of the vaccination, administered by a doctor who knows the patient well, and not on the quantity”. This was said to Adnkronos Salute by Silvestro Scotti, national secretary of the Federation of general practitioners (Fimmg), commenting on the letter from 24 vaccinating doctors who – after the case of the 18-year-old suffering from thrombosis after getting the AstraZeneca anti-Covid vaccine on an Open Day, and hospitalized in Genoa – they said they were opposed to this formula which allows the administration of the viral vector vaccine under 40 years of age.
“I do not agree with these positions – said Scotti – Today for all vaccines, without exception, the risk-benefit calculation is always in favor of vaccines. But I believe that vaccination in our studies is the quality choice to be undertaken”. Instead, “the Open days continue to go in the direction of quantitative vaccination compared to the qualitative one that we propose, that is the possibility of bringing it back to a medical procedure. This means – he specifies – a doctor who makes all the assessments related to the benefit risk and who can to do this starting from all the specific characteristics of the patient. And at that point, having him available, offer him the best vaccine for his condition “. Among other things, family doctors, as they have shown with the flu vaccinations, are also able to “quickly guarantee the vaccination coverage of their patients”, recalled Scotti.
The Open Days, adds the Fimmg secretary, “are certainly increasing the numbers, but it should be understood how much the numbers of subjects with multiple pathologies are increasing. This formula, with the rush to vaccination, does not allow full awareness of the health process. Not by chance we receive hundreds of phone calls from the parents of the children who sign up for the Open Days. In all phases: before, during and after. I spend my days giving information and this is a lesser known job than the Open Days “.
On the specific case of the young woman suffering from thrombosis in Genoa, Scotti notes that “in this case one cannot point the finger at the formula for administering the vaccine”. Even if it were to ascertain a link, currently only suspect, with the vaccine “there are no particular predictors of these very rare effects”.