Harsh reminder of the Scientific Technical Committee (Cts) to the Regions on the Open Days for anti vaccinations Covid, at the center of the new vaccine controversy of AstraZeneca. In the minutes of the Cts of 11 June, attached to the circular of the Ministry of Health which updates the indications on the use of various drugs, the team of experts “recommends that the Regions, whenever they promote Open Day events that raise awareness of anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, respect the indications for age groups, making the approach to vaccination as homogeneous as possible throughout the national territory “.
Aifa director Nicola Magrini also spoke on the issue in an interview with the newspaper The print: «The Open Days? A creative idea, an exception in some Regions, which have thus tried to boost the vaccination campaign ». Magrini’s statements arrive after accuse moved by the governor of Liguria Giovanni Toti against Aifa itself and the CTS, responsible according to him for the ways in which the AstraZeneca vaccine was used. “The vaccination policy is done by the government, not by the regulatory agencies,” replied Magrini.
Magrini: “The risks on the vaccine were known”
Magrini underlines that the Regions had received the indications on the administration of the drug in due time, a moment in which “there was an understandable tendency to use all the vaccines available. For weeks ”, he continues,“ we have known that with AstraZeneca the risk of adverse events collapses among the elderly, those who wanted to understand understood ”. According to Magrini, on 1 June the AIFA had already delivered an opinion to the State-Regions Conference on the characteristics of the vaccine at the center of the debate.
“With the rapid descent of the epidemiological curve and the reduction of the impact of the disease, the relationship between risks and benefits of vaccination with AstraZeneca has changed,” explains Magrini. “Now the picture has changed again, because we only have 30 new cases per 100 thousand inhabitants and, above all, a wide availability of other vaccines: given the prevalence of RNA ones, it is better to use those”. On the issue of the authorization of the extraordinary commissioner to the Covid emergency Francesco FigliuoloMagrini says: “I am not part of the CTS, I do not comment on those minutes, I only notice that the recommendation was very clear and I notice an excess of protagonism on the part of the Regions”.
Toti’s reply
For his part, Toti, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, returned to the question: «The Regions had been authorized to open Open Days or reservation lines to administer AstraZeneca. There is a letter from General Figliuolo who, on the advice of the CTS, gives the authorization, but we are waiting for a clarification on everything: we have applied the rules of the main regulatory agencies in an exceptional situation, this decision of the Cts I hope it is written in stone “. The governor of Liguria then added, replying to Magrini: «Nobody should be allowed to say that [AstraZeneca] it was used in an imaginative way by the Regions. We used it according to what established by Aifa and by the Technical Scientific Committee. Until the last circular, of June 5, which reiterates that the use is for all adults. Nobody can talk about ‘experiments’ on children, “concluded the governor.
