• EU summit on vaccines, Draghi: "Accelerate to slow down the race of variants"

  • Pfizer doses are missing: vaccination of people over 80 years old suspended in Naples

  • Vaccines, D'Ancona (Iss): a single dose could be enough for those who have had Covid

  • EU sets vaccination criteria: by March 80% priority categories and in July 70% of adults

  • EU launches public-private plan for local vaccine production

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February 27, 2021 The threshold of 4 million doses of vaccine against Covid administered in Italy has been exceeded.

According to the data of the extraordinary commissioner for the health emergency, updated to 03.08 today, 4,074,575 Italians are vaccinated with the first dose, while 1,377,987 have received the double dose.



Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign (31 December), 5,830,660 vaccine doses have been distributed, of which 4,537,260 Pfizer / BioNTech, 244,600 Moderna and 1,048,800 Astrazeneca.   



In detail, the doses were administered to 2,303,030 health workers, 699,945 non-health personnel, 392,365 residents of residential structures, 523,882 over 80, 55,108 units of the armed forces and 100,245 units of school personnel.



But now the prime minister, Mario Draghi, is calling for a change of pace and acceleration on vaccines.

At his debut in the European Council, he reiterated that to "slow down" the race of virus mutations, it is necessary to "increase vaccinations" with "coordinated" action at European level, "rapid and transparent", opening up the possibility of giving "priority" to first doses, also in the light of recent scientific literature. 



The accumulated stock amounts to 30% of the total availability at the moment.

They correspond to about two million doses, which can be used immediately.

This is the strategy followed by the United Kingdom. 



Signs of approval come from Guido Bertolaso, coordinator of the Lombard vaccination campaign: "It is not enough to proceed with the restrictive measures, we must use the" weapons "that exist and for this reason Lombardy intends to focus on the vaccine, administering the first dose to the greatest number of people instead of preferring to complete the cycle. Bertolaso ​​remembers the "study that says that with the first dose there is immune coverage.

The goal with the first dose is to reduce hospitalization.

This is what other countries like Israel say ". So," we must immediately focus on the first dose.

If I have 100,000 doses of the vaccine, I use them for 100,000 people, I don't reduce myself to 50,000 and then do the recall. "



Silvio Garattini, president of the Mario Negri Pharmacological Institute, in an interview with Repubblica, underlines the need to guarantee the necessary doses also in the future. "We need vaccine factories", he says.



Even Galli, primary infectious disease specialist at the Sacco hospital in Milan, is said, even if "with little enthusiasm", in favor of administering only the first dose. The data coming from the Israeli experience clears the English experience, the data show that the response to the first dose already guarantees enough, in relation to the immune response necessary to fight the infection ".



The fact remains that the number of recipients of the vaccine must be expanded as much as possible and Europe, for Draghi, is called upon to put in place a tougher line towards the "Big Pharma" that do not respect contractual commitments.

Then there is the national vaccine production charter.

The path is not easy but for Draghi it is more than a plan B. It is in the distribution of vaccines, in fact, that, according to government sources, the EU and also Italy have shown greater difficulties in fighting the pandemic.