Vaccines. The government reviews the plan and announces appeals for delays

Conte (ANSA / PRESS OFFICE PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL)

• Vaccines, centers: "There are no precision syringes to make 6 doses per vial."

  Arcuri: "False"

• Vaccines, Pfizer towards recovery part delays next week

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January 24, 2021After Pfizer's delays, those of AstraZeneca: the government is forced to put the vaccine plan back in place and review the objectives, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attacking pharmaceutical companies and calling the cuts announced by AstraZeneca "unacceptable".

The delays "constitute serious contractual violations that produce enormous damage to Italy, our plan was drawn up on the basis of freely assumed contractual commitments" and for this, he says, "we will use all the instruments and all legal initiatives to claim compliance. ".

Already on Monday the government - as Ansa reconstructs - will move against Pfizer on three channels: a warning for non-compliance and a complaint to the prosecutors for potential health damage, both to be presented in our country, and a request on behalf of the government and the Regions at the Brussels Bar for non-compliance.   

The EU also wants to be clear about the delays and has convened the English company on Monday, indicating two objectives: to have a clear program that allows to plan deliveries and accelerate distribution.   

But the government also has to deal with two other problems on the table: the alarm coming from several regional vaccination centers, including Lombardy, Sicily and Emilia Romagna, about the lack of precision syringes, and the need to prevent variants of Covid, from the English to the South African one that worries much more, cause infections to explode also in Italy as has already happened in several European countries.

On the first point comes Arcuri's denial: "It's false", fewer syringes were distributed "for the trivial reason that Pfizer sent us fewer vials of vaccine".

On the risk of variants, however, the question is more complex so much so that the executive, says the director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health Gianni Rezza, is evaluating the possibility of an "increase in measures".   

The

, therefore.

The government, with the Minister of Regional Affairs Francesco Boccia, summoned the regions together with Speranza and Arcuri to update the one presented by the Minister of Health to Parliament on 2 December.

The first doses of Astrazeneca, if the vaccine is given the green light by the EMA, will arrive on February 15, then again on March 28 and 15.

According to the initial plan, 28 million and 269 thousand doses should have arrived in Italy in the first quarter of 2021.

A quantity that is now evident to all, will not be respected: by the end of March the doses available will be less than 15 million, therefore about half of what was expected.

Astrazeneca has in fact confirmed the reduction due to a production problem, a 60% cut which, both Conte and Arcuri explained, for Italy would mean going from 8 million to 3.4 million doses.

To which we should add the 8.7 million Pfizer (if the American company returns to initial supplies) and the million and 300 thousand of Moderna.

A situation that prompted the governor of Veneto Zaia, present at the meeting, to suggest that "if there is a green light from Ema for Russian or Chinese vaccines, this solution can also be used".   

It is therefore a question of reviewing the objectives, as confirmed by the President of the Higher Health Council Franco Locatelli: "the reduction of AstraZeneca's production capacity will require the reshaping of the campaign".

It should be possible to focus on the priority commitment, vaccinating all health and social health workers, guests and staff of the Rsa, over 80 and fragile, oncological, cardiological and haematological patients by March.

In all, almost 7 million Italians.

But not the other categories: the 13 million and 400 thousand Italians between the ages of 60 and 79, the 7 million and 400 thousand with at least one chronic comorbidity, in addition to the staff of essential services: teachers and school staff, police forces, prison staff and prisoners .

There is also another element to take into account.

When the EMA gives the green light to the AstraZeneca vaccine, Locatelli emphasizes, it will be necessary to see "what kind of approval will be given", that is, if it will be "conditioned by certain age parameters rather than by percentage of vaccination coverage".

Basically - concludes Ansa - if, as it seems, the vaccine will be recommended for the population under 55, Italy will have to identify new criteria to define the priority categories, giving priority to the youngest.