CREMONA (20 December 2020) – A further 36,000 vaccine doses for the population over the age of 65 have been assigned by the Lombardy Region to ATS Val Padana and will be fully available to General Practitioners in the last week of December; as of 15 December, more than 167,000 are already distributed among Asst, Mmg and Paediatricians. With the latest delivery, 200,000 doses will be exceeded, which represents an increase of more than 80% compared to last year.
The ATS of the Po Valley, in collaboration with the ASSTs of Crema, Cremona and Mantua, with General Practitioners, Pediatricians of Free Choice and other Providing Bodies (Social-health structures and accredited private hospitalization and treatment health structures) prepared the Operational Plan of the 2020/21 influenza vaccination campaign which started, for the categories at risk and free of charge, on 26 October 2020.
The vaccination campaign in the provinces of Mantua and Cremona recorded an important collaboration on the part of Territorial Medicine: 99% of General Practitioners (487 doctors – 220 for the province of Cremona and 267 for that of Mantua) and over 56 % of Family Pediatricians (45 pediatricians – 26 for Cremonese and 19 for Mantua) have given their willingness to carry out the flu vaccination to their patients.
The overall requirement estimated and requested by General Practitioners and Family Pediatricians was 123,570 doses for the former and 4,520 doses for the latter.
Here is the progress of the vaccine distribution as of December 15th.
DOCTORS OF GENERAL MEDICINE
103,536 doses of flu vaccines were delivered to the doctors of the two provinces, of which 48,798 for the province of Cremona and 54,738 for the province of Mantua.
These also include a portion of approximately 11,000 doses recently delivered to ASSTs and intended for the target population under the age of 65. This further procurement, in addition to having partially satisfied the reservations already present in the hospital agendas and allowed the completion of the vaccination of the health workers of the health and socio-sanitary structures, made it possible in some territories to distribute them to family doctors who had reshaped the need for favor of the fragile population up to 64 years of age not yet vaccinated.
Furthermore, following a latest acquisition of 440,000 doses by the Lombardy Region, 36,000 additional doses of vaccine intended for the population over the age of 65 have been attributed to ATS Val Padana in recent days, which will be fully available to the Doctors. of General Medicine the last week of December (remember that the peak of the flu epidemic usually comes between the end of January and the beginning of February), for a total of almost 140,000 doses received.
FAMILY PEDIATRICIANS
They were delivered to the Family Pediatricians n. 6,010 doses of vaccines, of which 2,410 for the province of Cremona and 3,600 for the province of Mantua.
Moreover, following the green light of the Ministry of Health and the Italian Medicines Agency for the use of the flu spray vaccine in a single administration, it was possible to expand the pediatric range to which to offer the flu vaccination to children until completion. of 18 years. The 3 ASSTs of Cremona, Crema and Mantova, the General Practitioners and the participating family pediatricians have therefore extended the free vaccination which will continue also in January and until the available stocks are exhausted; those of the family doctors will soon be integrated with the arrival of another 14,580 doses.
RESIDENTIAL SOCIO-SANITARY STRUCTURES
All 11,507 doses of the same requests for operators and guests were distributed to residential social and health structures, divided as follows:
- 8,215 doses for guests (4,508 in the province of Cremona and 3,707 in that of Mantua);
- 3,292 for healthcare workers (1,935 in the Cremona area and 1,357 in the Mantua area)
ASST OF CREMA, CREMONA AND MANTOVA
The administration of vaccines at the ASSTs started at the beginning of November, always free of charge and with different frequency according to the different categories concerned (pregnant women, frail patients, over 65, health workers and children up to the sixth year of age).
An important contribution was made by the ASSTs, carried out through their territorial vaccination centers. In particular:
- ASST of Cream 6,822 doses;
- ASST of Cremona 5,434 doses;
- ASST of Mantua 7,338 doses.
Overall, therefore, as of December 15, 167,021 doses of influenza vaccines have already been distributed throughout the ATS territory; this figure marks an increase of almost 50% compared to the offer of the flu vaccination campaign last year, in which a total of 112,000 doses were administered by Primary Care Doctors and ASSTs. Once the delivery of the quantities already assigned and expected by the end of the month has been completed, 200,000 doses will be exceeded, with an increase over last year of more than 80%.
As already clarified on various occasions by the regional institutional levels, the criticalities recorded this year are primarily attributable to the difficulty of the pharmaceutical industry (also due to the enormous demand at a global level) to promptly supply all the needs expressed by the Lombardy Region, including that of ATS Val Padana; to these were added those relating to the management of the booking agendas of the ASSTs and family doctors / pediatricians, also connected to the methods of distributing vaccines (specifically, the fractionation and timing).
To cope with this, the Region and ATS have collaborated daily and effectively, since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, in order to meet the requests of people entitled to vaccination and minimize – as far as possible – the inconvenience for them, for doctors and health professionals.
We are sorry, also and above all because these problems risk diminishing in the eyes of public opinion the extent of the prevention intervention in the area – significantly higher than in the past – and of mortifying the commitment of the many operators and professionals involved.
Precisely on this line, the Lombardy Region has established that citizens who belong to one of the categories for which the vaccine is free of charge who have privately carried out the flu vaccine by paying for its administration will be able to request reimbursement from the ATS of residence to a maximum of 32 euros. To access the reimbursement, citizens must make the request, by e-mail, to the Public Relations Office of the ATS ([email protected]), sending the receipt of the payment made and the self-certification certifying membership to one of the categories of entitled persons.
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