Per EMA recommendation: catch up with AstraZeneca

Recently, countless vaccines against AstraZeneca could not be made; Starting today, the agent will be injected again. Ahead of the vaccination summit, calls for GPs to get involved more quickly are growing louder.

Following the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine will resume today. For example in Baden-württemberg Available dates should continue to be initially offered to people over 80 years of age, among others.

In North Rhine-Westphalia AstraZeneca should be available to professional groups such as elementary and special school teachers. However, there has been criticism about it for days. at Saar Vaccines will continue in a model project in general practitioners’ offices and in hospitals. In Hamburg AstraZeneca funds must be administered to people with special illnesses in specialized practices.

“Report the risk well”

Now it is important to catch up on vaccines, said the general secretary of the German Immunology Society Carsten Watzl, the dpa news agency. According to previous RKI figures, the suspension missed at least tens of thousands of vaccines per day. That could mean more Covid-19 deaths in the offing. The EMA’s recommendation was to be welcomed and awaited, Watzl said: “You should now be well informed that there is a risk of rare cerebral vein thrombosis.”

In view of the chances of contracting severe or fatal cycles of Covid-19, it makes more sense in any case to get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca product now rather than waiting months for another available vaccine.

General practitioners will be a topic at the vaccination summit

The prime ministers of the federal states want to hold an afternoon conference call with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on how the vaccination campaign can be accelerated.

The participation of general practitioners will also be a topic. Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) told the dpa news agency that its integration into standard care would be a strong signal. He hopes very much that Merkel and the prime ministers can agree on this.

The chairman of the Bundestag Health Committee, Erwin Rüddel, hopes that the vaccination campaign will accelerate as soon as GPs are involved. In practice, however, the previous prioritization should no longer apply, demanded the CDU politician in the “Passauer Neue Presse.” “Doctors know their patients and prioritize them themselves,” Rüddel said.

The leader of the green parliamentary group, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, also called for family members and company doctors to allow corona vaccines immediately. She told the publishing network in Germany: “You know your patients, you know who to educate and how.”

Countries want to vaccinate practices from mid-April

On March 10, state health ministers agreed on a recommendation for today’s main meeting: Vaccinations in up to 70,000 general practitioners and specialty offices must begin nationwide no later than the week of April 19. Federal states also want 2.25 million vaccination doses per week to be available nationwide to vaccination centers for the start-up phase.

In the week before the AstraZeneca vaccination ban, countries had injected nearly 1.8 million doses of vaccine, less than they wanted to be reserved for them in the future. Spahn said a week ago that if 50,000 practices were to participate and were limited to the small number of 20 vaccines per week, they would already need a million doses. But since countries wanted 2.25 million doses, it was clear that more vaccine would have to be available first.

However, the delivery quantities should increase significantly. In the second quarter, 46.6 million cans of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna and 16.9 million cans of AstraZeneca will be delivered.