ROME (AP) – Italy’s main teachers’ union is concerned about plans for educators under the age of 55 to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine instead of giving it better protection, evidence that pressure groups are vying for gunfire specific as the virus and its variants widespread in Europe.
The CISL School union said in a statement on Monday that it wanted a meeting with the Italian government’s scientific committee. He complained that the decision to start the vaccine for teachers had not been consulted earlier than planned, with some of the first 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca arriving over the weekend.
The Italian government revived its vaccination plans last week after Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reduced vaccine delivery and the Italian pharmaceutical agency gave “preferential use” for AstraZeneca vaccines to people aged 18 to 55 years. over the age of 80 while designating AstraZeneca spikes for younger, at-risk workers.
Provisional analysis of human trials in the final phase showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was 70.4% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 after two doses. Pfizer and Moderna reported that the preliminary results of the final phase trials show that their vaccines were almost 95% effective.
Over the weekend, South Africa suspended plans to inoculate its frontline healthcare workers with AstraZeneca after a small clinical trial, it was suggested that it is not effective in preventing mild to moderate disease of the dominant variant in the country.
So far, Italy has identified a person who tested positive for the South African variant that arrived on a flight from the mainland, although it has had more cases than the variants identified in Britain and Brazil. But on Monday, the Austrian government issued a warning against travel to the province of Tyrol, which borders northern Italy, after 293 infections of the variant identified in South Africa were confirmed.
Northern Italy has been the hardest hit part of the country since the first case transmitted locally on February 21 in Lombardy was confirmed and it became the only epicenter in Europe. Although infections across the country have remained stable for several weeks (nearly 8,000 new confirmed cases and 307 new deaths were reported on Monday), northern regions continue to see the highest number of infections and deaths. . With more than 90,000 deaths, Italy has the second confirmed number of deaths confirmed by COVID-19 in Europe after Britain.
The union said school workers were wondering if they would accept the AstraZeneca vaccine, given its “lower vaccination coverage compared to the more effective Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.”
Italian virus tsar Domenico Arcuri has defended the decision to target AstraZeneca vaccines to younger workers, saying the double aim of the Italian campaign is to reduce overall mortality among older people at higher risk of fatal complications and reduce the spread of the virus among younger people.
“We have a new weapon that allows us to amplify the categories for vaccination,” Arcuri told reporters Friday.
Originally, Italy’s national vaccination plan gave priority to health workers and nursing home residents with the first doses of vaccines arriving, followed by people over 80 years of age.
But the new designation of “preferred use” for AstraZeneca shooting means a parallel campaign will be launched this week for teachers under 55, police personnel, the armed forces, prisoners and prison officials, as well as essential workers and community residents.
To date, Italy has administered more than 2.5 million doses. The first doses were started in Rome on Monday for people over the age of 80 who did not live in nursing homes at local hospitals.
“I have seven grandchildren waiting for a hug,” a satisfied Abramo Abrusca said when he was shot by Pfizer.