Covid: Pharmacist orders, ’20 thousand ready to vaccinate in 11,500 exercises’

Rome, 21 May (beraking latest news Salute) – “According to the surveys conducted 2 days ago, just under 20,000 colleagues have completed the qualifying courses of the Higher Institute of Health and another 3,000 will finish them shortly. The affiliated private pharmacies that will participate in the vaccination plan” against Covid-19 “are 10,518 out of 17,617, plus 1,000 municipal pharmacies out of 2,000”. This was announced by the president of the Federation of Orders of Italian Pharmacists (Fofi), Andrea Mandelli, in a note.

“A few days after the final approval of the Sostegni Decree, which sanctions the participation of pharmacists and community pharmacies in the vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus, the data show that the profession has responded with great enthusiasm to the call of the country”, underlines Mandelli.

According to Fofi, “a real network of proximity to vaccination sites is being created, which will make it possible to easily reach the active population, as is happening in countries such as France, where pharmacies have dispensed almost 1.2 million in just over a month. of vaccinations against Sars-CoV-2 “.

For the Federation of Orders, the participation of the profession in this vaccination campaign “is not only a fundamental step to accelerate the exit from the pandemic emergency, but it lays the foundations for a new prevention policy, which makes use of the widespread presence and professionalism community pharmacists. In this way it will be possible to more easily address the need to repeat immunization against the new coronavirus in the future, as well as to expand the coverage of Italians against influenza or pneumococcal infection: in England, during the 2020-2021 campaign, pharmacists vaccinated 50% more people than in the previous campaign “.

“The Federation is proud of the response of Italian pharmacists, and will continue to support their commitment”, concludes Mandelli.