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Prices of vaccinations fired, deserted races and doses not available In Lombardy it rains wet. As if the mismanagement of the last few months weren’t enough, in fact, the Lombard health system again ended up under indictment. The controversy this time is triggered by the accumulated delay in the management of stocks of influenza vaccines. In other words, the only medical tool available today to avoid the new congestion of the regional health system during this autumn of pandemic resurgence.
READ ALSO Influenza vaccine, Lombardy chaos: the five tenders were not enough
COSTS
Well, despite recommendations from the Ministry of Health dating back several months, Lombardy hasn’t moved in time to get supplies. Or rather, he did it the wrong way when sounding a series of errors in the management of tenders that will now cost the already battered regional health a dear. In fact, if, for example, Lazio and Calabria have paid around 4 and a half euros for each dose, or Piedmont has spent 4.65, Lombardy now, according to experts (specialists and pharmaceutical companies), “runs the risk of having to pay at least 15 for the same product. ” And what’s more, it doesn’t even mean that you will be able to do it. In fact, the available vials are finished and before pharmaceutical companies can produce others, it will take several weeks, perhaps months. Time that the Lombard Healthcare led by Giulio Gallera, however, does not have available.
According to the indications of the Ministry of Health, to avoid as much as possible that the symptoms of Covid can be confused with those of a normal flu, this year’s vaccination campaign should have started on these days and be guaranteed free of charge to children between 6 months and 6 years, and over 60 years.
However, unlike other regions, Lombardy, already rebuilt in recent days by the Gimbe foundation, has not been stocked with enough vaccines. To date, in fact, beyond Gallera’s guarantees, which claims to have another 500,000 in the adjudication process, it has purchased around 2.28 million doses. Insufficient quantity to cover 75% of the target population, minimum threshold identified by the Ministry of Health. The guaranteed coverage is in fact equal to 66.3% – almost a million and a half vials dance – with doses discarded in extremis because the original purchase plan failed miserably.
NOTICES AND DELAYS
If the first call issued by Air, the regional purchasing center, for February 26 received a response from only one company that proposed a price per dose higher than that set (5.9 euros compared to the 4.5 indicated by the Region), the second was deserted. So already in the third call at the end of June Aria increased the offer to 5.9 euros per dose. However, a figure that has become insufficient because the quantities available on the market have been drastically reduced in the meantime. Thus, although during the summer Lombardy managed to grab the doses it currently has with 4 calls, stocks are not enough. For this reason, at the end of August and the end of September, Aria launched two more tenders in which it claimed to be willing to pay 10 euros each of the 1.5 million doses required and, above all, an attractive incentive, to pay the advance rate. However, nothing in fact, even in this case, the auction was deserted.
A mess that now not only threatens to clog hospitals but above all will cause the postponement of the start of the vaccination campaign. “We will leave immediately after the first half of October,” Gallera said, but only with fragile patients and pregnant women. Those over 65, by contrast, are postponed to November, followed, if doses are available, by health workers, children and those over 60. For the working population, however, it is not even spoken.
ADMINISTRATION
However, according to experts, Lombard Healthcare’s at least unique health management is certainly not new: “It is the Region that believes the least in flu vaccines, so much that it pays less than all doctors to inoculate them.” Three euros compared to the national average of 6. This, added to other complications, translates into a lower coverage than in the rest of the country. 49.9% of the elderly Lombard population was vaccinated in 2019/2020, compared to a national average of 54.6%. Not at all encouraging data that one can only hope does not end up overwhelming a healthcare system that already seemed inadequate.
Last updated: 02:58
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