Vaccines in pharmacies from June: how to book and which ones will be available

Vaccines in the pharmacy, finally it begins. In Lazio, for example, from May 20 you can book to receive your dose of the product Johnson & Johnson, at least at this early stage. The actual start of the administration is fixed at the 24th of the month. They can book themselves residents between the ages of 40 and 50. The same ones who, next weekend, will be able to join the “open days” organized by the region to dispose of the reserves of AstraZeneca, on the basis of what happened in Caserta (where, however, access was free and for everyone from 18 years of age) and in Sicily (but only for the over 50s) in recent weekends.

Returning to the pharmacies, the first steps had already been seen at the end of March in Liguria. But this is the phase in which we get to the heart, also because the pharmacists have concluded or are concluding a special one training course prepared by the Higher Institute of Health. How will it work? It depends. In all likelihood, the participating pharmacies, which will vaccinate in the outdoor gazebos (according to the method used for the tampons) or in the internal spaces, if they meet the technical requirements, will be included among the administration sites selectable within the booking platforms. So, at least, it will work in Lazio, as well as for general practitioners who will massively join the vaccination campaign. Marco Cossolo, president of Federfarma, on the other hand, explains to Corriere della Sera that “it will be a service on individual demand. Anyone who wants to get vaccinated can go directly to your pharmacist and ask for an appointment. A simple and fast path that favors participation in the prophylaxis campaign ». On this, in short, it is probable that the regions will proceed in different ways, at least until there is an abundance of vaccines to multiply the booking channels.

Of the 11,400 members of Federfarma (these are private pharmacies), half have already joined. IS over 25 thousand pharmacists they have already completed the course and are ready to perform the injections. If in Lazio for the moment they can access the over 40, therefore those born from 1981 onwards, the prospect is to rapidly expand the campaign also to the youngest groups, up to 18 years, using above all the single-dose vaccine Johnson & Johnson and that of AstraZeneca. On the one developed together with the University of Oxford, however, doubts remain to be resolved with respect to contradictory indications who would like to strongly recommend it only over 60 years. But the campaign, at least for the moment, cannot do without those doses even below that threshold. Reason why it seems that the emergency commissioner Francesco Paolo Figliuolo is strongly pushing the health authorities, especially the Ministry of Health and the Aifa leaders, to lower the recommendation to at least 50 years (we had talked about it in recent days). But even the last hesitations such as those of Lazio will be overcome: the most probable picture is that, with or without a recommendation from the ministry, everyone will be able to receive it, on a voluntary basis. Otherwise they will wait for their age group’s call for access mRna vaccines: Pfizer-Biontech, Moderna and from June the German Curevac.

They should be able to administer, explains Cossolo, “from 20 to 30 doses per day in each pharmacy“. If with vaccines what has happened and continues to happen with rapid antigenic swabs, which have made a breakthrough in diagnostics and general control within everyone’s reach, then the vaccination campaign will be able to approach the much more ambitious results of the 500 thousand current administrations. (even if the cruising speed is almost always placed below that threshold).