The Minister of Health, Marta Temido, made the weekly status of the evolution of the vaccination plan against Covid-19, after the information meeting with the plan’s task force.
Portugal today received 86 580 vaccines from Pfizer / Biontec, totaling about 483 thousand doses from this consortium, and 19 200 from Moderna, of which 10 200 were to have been delivered last week, but were received yesterday, said the Minister, adding that «two deliveries from Moderna and three from Pfizer are scheduled for February”.
Of the 86 500 doses received today, “23 400 were sent to the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, of which 11700 were for each region”.
“Two batches of the newly approved AstraZeneca vaccine are expected to be delivered,” said the Minister, adding that deliveries scheduled for February 9 and 19 total 200,000 vaccines, out of a total of 6.8 million in the contractual doses.
The Minister also referred that the European Medicines Agency approved “the conditional authorization for placing on the market for the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, and Portugal has the expectation of receiving two batches, on 9 and 19 February, of approximately 200 thousand vaccines, of a total of 6.8 million doses contracted ».
340 thousand vaccinated
Marta Temido affirmed that “340 thousand inoculations have already been carried out, being 270 thousand of first doses and 70 thousand of second doses”.
Health professionals from the National Health Service and from the social and private sectors, professionals and residents in residential structures for the elderly, for people with disabilities and the national network of integrated continuous care, and dialysis centers were inoculated.
Vaccination in care homes
“Vaccination of the first dose is completed in homes and the like, except in those where there are active outbreaks. For this week, the plan includes vaccination in homes where the outbreaks were extinguished” she said.
At the same time, “vaccination of priority health professionals from the private and social sectors and some from the public sector will continue.”
There is also “the vaccination of people over 80 years old without comorbidities and the vaccination of people between 50 and 80 years old with one of the four comorbidities identified as being of particular risk of hospitalization or death”, “a total of 900 thousand people, who will be contacted for vaccination ‘.
The second doses will also be administered to health professionals who have already spent adequate time, as well as in homes and the like, said the Minister.
Convocation process
The President of the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health, Luís Goes Pinheiro, presented the way people will be summoned for vaccination, stressing that this “is a new and complex process, which is being tested”, starting with the first inoculations by this via on the 3rd.
The main means will be the call for an SMS with information that you are scheduled to be vaccinated on such a day, at so many hours, in such part, asking that the answer is yes or no.
If the person answers no or does not answer within the given time, a new SMS will be sent with a new date proposal. If the answer is no or there is no answer to the second message, it will be treated as a rejection.
This user will be transferred to the health department, who will either repeat the sending of sms or contact her in another way, the last possibility being the sending of a letter.
On the eve of the scheduled day, the user will receive a new SMS reminding him, to reduce absenteeism.
If there is an unfolding of the vaccination for places other than the health units, another SMS will be sent with the address.
The second dose will be scheduled when taking the first, and a solution is being developed that allows immediate scheduling, but later communication to the user.
The Minister of Health also referred to the episodes of disrespect for the vaccination plan, condemning these cases and stressing that “this is a process of collective interest that cannot suffer weaknesses”.