Starting March 1, the vaccines will also be available in pharmacies – he told me how things will go

Pharmacists and patients alike were eagerly awaiting vaccination in pharmacies. The first pharmacists are now ready to acquire additional knowledge that will allow them to start vaccinating clients.

The Delfi portal spoke with Rasa Montvile, head of the BENU Lithuania pharmacy network, about how vaccines would be made in pharmacies, what requirements pharmacies will have to ensure to ensure they are fluid, and what skills pharmacists will need.

– The possibility for pharmacists to vaccinate people was provided by order of the former Minister of Health Aurelijus Veryga. Remember the origins of this decision. What determined it?

– The first beginnings appeared as early as June, when the new term “advanced practice pharmacist” appeared in the Personal Health Care Act. Such a pharmacist has the opportunity to start vaccination in pharmacies from March 1 of this year.

Of course, an order or amendment to a law, we know very well, is not enough; a whole series of statutes needs to be amended.

For pharmacists to initiate vaccination, three components are necessary: ​​a network, people, and the right facilities.

As you know, the network of pharmacies in Lithuania is developed, there are many and they work for long hours. We do not have this problem.

– And who will be called advanced practice pharmacists?

– These are pharmacists who will have an extra for this advanced activity in addition to their usual pharmacist license.

A new medical standard was issued in December defining what this advanced practice pharmacist can do. You must acquire additional professional qualifications, undergo additional training. With an additional license, you will be able to provide immunoprophylaxis services to pharmacies.

– What are these additional requirements for education?

– The training will have a minimum duration of 36 hours, of which at least 10 hours will be a practical course.

During the theoretical course, pharmacists will have to become familiar both with the prevention and control of infectious diseases and with the vaccination itself, its benefits, vaccination recommendations, vaccines and their types, how to develop immunity, learn all the principles of asepsis and antiseptics.

During the practical course, of course, all this knowledge must be put into practice. Pharmacists will need to learn how to assess a patient’s condition, how to prepare for prevention, what to ask that patient, how to properly perform the procedure, and finally, how to record that a patient has been vaccinated.

The Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) has already prepared an advanced training program for pharmacists and will start training them from January 18.

– So far only LSMU is preparing?

– This university already has quite specific answers to the questions of when to start enrollment, how many hours of training will last, how many people will be able to accept, etc. We are also waiting for data on this program from Vilnius University, we ourselves are actively interested in it.

– Have the pharmacists in the BENU network responded positively to the possibility of becoming advanced pharmacists?

– I was also surprised, but I reacted very positively. When asked who would like to learn it, because we don’t actually translate anything, 50 people signed up. That means they want and feel capable of doing it.

We send everyone to training. It is true that it will also depend on the capabilities of the university. We cannot answer exactly how many positions the university will have to accept the first wave of pharmacists.

– Against what diseases can pharmacists vaccinate people?

– Because this is the beginning, the fresh buds, the first vaccines to be launched, will naturally be the dead ones, harmless. There are only two of them: seasonal flu and tick-borne encephalitis. I would say that both are very important: tick-borne encephalitis, as we know, is certainly a very common and very dangerous disease, also seasonal flu. Therefore, to vaccinate as many audiences as possible, people must have easier access to vaccines.

Because pharmacists will only be newcomers, beginners, we will only be able to vaccinate adults. In addition, those people who want to be vaccinated with us will be vaccinated on their own. We are not yet included in the National Immunoprophylaxis Program. But I think these are the first steps and I really congratulate them, because abroad it has been happening for a long time and pharmacists have been vaccinating in Irish pharmacies for quite some time.

– The third component you mentioned is the rooms that need to be prepared, installed.

– Yes. It will have to be a separate room with all the necessary facilities, starting with the way the patient will sit, as well as the facilities for the vaccination itself, disinfection, safe waste treatment, etc. That should also happen. These requirements are already enshrined in the relevant legislation.

– Will those rooms have to be separate?

– Many pharmacies had already set up separate rooms a few years ago, when the pharmaceutical care service was born (one of the first services was the training of inhalation technicians), where personalized advice could be given to patients: teaching how to start new drugs, teach inhalation techniques, measure blood pressure. , temperature. Thus, these offices, like a separate room next to the office, already exist and will be used specifically for vaccination, creating a closed space for the patient.

– Will vaccines be available at all BENU pharmacies?

– Now we start from the part, because not all pharmacies had separate offices. Vaccines will initially be where we had offices, that is, in about a quarter of the pharmacies. However, I believe that little by little this will begin to happen in practically all pharmacies. But it can take years.

– What will a person who wants to be vaccinated have to do in a pharmacy? Will you have to register?

– It will be registered and we will also be obliged to register the data e. health that had been vaccinated. We are now awaiting instructions from the Registration Center on how to integrate this for us.

Naturally, in this case a doctor’s appointment will not be necessary. However, an advanced practice pharmacist e. in health you will see certain marks that the doctor may have left: that the patient has sensitivity to something, is taking some medication that may be related. With this information, the advanced practice pharmacist will decide for himself whether to vaccinate or not.

– You mentioned that initially pharmacies will be able to get vaccinated against two diseases: tick-borne encephalitis and seasonal flu. And what about vaccines against other infections, especially the coronavirus?

– We are talking about this both with the Ministry of Health and with the National Public Health Center, because we understand that the pandemic situation is very difficult and each day of delay may require additional victims.

Pharmacies could certainly make a significant contribution to the wider COVID-19 vaccination by setting up public immunity. It is true that the Pfizer and BioTech vaccines, which are mainly vaccinated in Lithuania, require exceptional cold storage conditions. But for a vaccine like the one made by AstraZeneca, a normal refrigerator temperature of 2 to 8 degrees is sufficient. I think pharmacies could really guarantee that these vaccines are stocked and that the population is vaccinated with them.

But first we must be prepared and show that we can get involved in this vaccination program.

– Will it be possible to get cheaper vaccines in pharmacies?

– You know, he went abroad just because pharmacies offered this service cheaper than family doctors, the opportunity is likely to arise.

– So, can we really get vaccinated in pharmacies from March 1?

– We are prepared for it if the university helps us to prepare specialists. There are cabinets. There are still some bylaws that we hope can be amended.

We hope to be able to do it from March 1. Even more so because March is the month in which it will be important to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis.