Onco-haematological patients, people who have undergone a transplant, immunosuppressed and patients with severe forms of arthritis: these are the people who could benefit from anti-Covid prophylaxis with monoclonal antibodies. In Piedmont there are 15,000 but not all of them have obtained this protection to date and now the risk is that the available doses that expire at the end of the month are wasted. This is what has emerged in recent days during a virtual meeting that is part of the tour in 10 Regions, promoted by Senior Italia FederAnziani in collaboration with AstraZeneca, which was attended by representatives of patients and the Region.
Protect the frail
“We thank the General Director of the ASL City of Turin and Commissioner of the Zero Company Carlo Picco and the entire Board for having responded quickly, in recent months, to our first reminder and taken charge of the problem of the most fragile patients”, said Roberto Messina, president of Senior Italia FederAnziani. According to what emerges from the meeting, in the Piedmont Region there are 15,000 men and women who can benefit from prophylaxis with monoclonal antibodies and thus protect themselves from the risk of serious infection from Covid. These are people who, due to other pathological conditions, do not get benefits from vaccination or cannot do it.
It is necessary to put new measures into practice
“The frail who can benefit from the prophylaxis of monoclonal antibodies are identifiable as they are already known and system on the platform following the long vaccination campaign – said Alessandro Stecco, President of the Regional Health and Social Assistance Commission, Piedmont Region – and as a Region through a Company Zero and the Department were involved in various communications with the departments of hematology, transplant centers, rheumatology, oncology and infectious disease clinics in the region, as well as DIRMEI. We will evaluate the possibility of calling them directly via text message as is done for vaccines “.
“As Federanziani – concludes Roberto Messina – we were able to obtain from the Italian Medicines Agency the suspension of the serological test before administering the therapy. This has allowed us to save precious time and thus facilitate the recourse to treatment. However, the doses that are still and not used must be administered in the general interest of the health of thousands of people ”.