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The Socialist Party issued a statement in response to the Minister of Health’s decision regarding the seasonal influenza vaccine, stating:
After the Ministry of Public Health informed us of the decree of a mechanism to legalize the vaccine against seasonal influenza, it is important for us to record the following points and put them in the drawing of the interested parties and public opinion:
First, the global pattern for seasonal flu vaccine requests is based on each country requesting the quantities it needs in advance each year to receive these quantities before the start of the flu season. And this year, the recommendation of the World Health Organization was that the vaccine be administered to the entire population to alleviate the flu as much as it is difficult to distinguish it from the corona covid19. Consequently, instead of legalizing vaccines, the state had to implement the recommendations of the World Health Organization and request in advance sufficient quantities of the vaccine to administer to all citizens.
Second: Consequently, the Ministry of Health requested that additional amounts of the vaccine be absorbed to compensate for the delay, but another crisis faces this request, which is the need to grant a credit in dollars for this amount, and this matter exposes, up to now, the entire reception process at the risk of being delayed for additional months.
Third: Given all this confusion at the state level and in the Crown Committee, it is more appropriate for the Ministry of Public Health to announce the launch of a vaccination campaign against seasonal influenza in the territory of the homeland that includes all the most vulnerable groups to complications that it classified in its statement, in order to further contribute to reducing Exposure to the disease, which will make the logistical capacity of public and private laboratories unable to absorb the enormous amount of tests to distinguish between Corona and influenza .
The memorandum stated that “these measures are framed within the framework of the ministry’s efforts to face the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the upcoming flu season in Lebanon and its coincidence with the pandemic, where influenza and Covid- 19 share many symptoms of the disease, based on the following:
First, the people most vulnerable to complications are: children between the ages of six months and five, people over the age of sixty, and people with chronic diseases, especially chronic lung diseases (including asthma) or cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Kidney, liver or diabetes failure, people with weakened immune systems, cancers, pregnant women, and healthcare workers.
Second: the vaccine is disbursed by the pharmacist after taking information about the name of the person to be vaccinated, their age, their personal telephone number and if they suffer from chronic diseases.
Third: The importer can deliver the seasonal influenza vaccine to pharmacies and hospitals operating in Lebanon (civil – military), provided that the vaccine is disbursed according to the aforementioned mechanism.
Fourth: Hospitals that receive this vaccine exclusively vaccinate their health workers and are committed to the specified official fee under penalty of legal processing and have no right to sell the vaccine.
Fifth: Hospitals are required to prepare a list of vaccinated individuals that includes the person’s name, age, phone number, and job description.
Sixth: The referred list will be sent to the Preventive Medicine Authority to the following email [email protected]
Seventh: The inspection of pharmacists of the Ministry of Health will supervise the correct implementation of the Memorandum in pharmacies and hospitals.
