Filenews 23 March 2021 - by Marilena Panagi
By speeding up the receipt by other companies of larger quantities of vaccines, the Ministry of Health intends to fill the gap that the reduced batches from AstraZeneca, which finally informed the European Union last week that it is unable to meet its obligations to the fullest.
Indeed, according to information from the "F", the Directorate of Markets and Procurement of the Ministry of Health has already taken the necessary steps, and as officially announced yesterday, by the end of May the island is expected to reach more than 270,000 doses.
At the same time, it appears that the competent vaccination committee has decided that an effort will be made to meet the request of chronic patients for equal treatment with regard to the choice of vaccine with which they will be vaccinated, although as Deputy Director of Medical Services Olga Kalakuta said in a statement, "some technical problems that have arisen must be overcome in order to do so".
The situation in relation to vaccinations is complemented by the delay, which as expected has been caused by the interruption of vaccinations with AstraZeneca vaccines last week, with the Ministry of Health however presenting an optimism that in the next two weeks it will proceed normally to vaccinate all people belonging to the high-risk groups, and as stated by deputy director of medical services Olga Kalakuta , 'at present the priority of the programme is the vulnerable groups of the population' and therefore 'it may be up to two weeks before the Vaccination Portal reopens to vaccinate the population on the basis of the age limit'.
However, according to an official announcement, the Ministry of Health still estimates that "at least 195,000 people will be vaccinated with at least the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine by the 1st week of May".
As added to the communication and always according to the calculations of the competent authorities, by that date, "they will receive at least the first dose of the vaccine, individuals who fall into the vulnerable groups, but also in the general population, covering the age group of 45 years and older".
With regard to the right to choose vaccines from people in vulnerable groups, the Deputy Director of Medical Services explained yesterday that "the basic principle of the special committee remains that, for medical reasons, no vaccine is qualified over others", but this, as she said, "means that if we have some individual cases of patients, we will not study it".
But at the request of the patients, the committee seems to have reached a settlement and, as Mrs Kalakuta said, at the moment, "there is an issue with the software and how vulnerable groups can choose, as is the case with vaccinating citizens on the basis of age, the vaccine with which they will be vaccinated". "I have the impression that this request must be met. We also made the decision and probably found a way," Ms. Kalakuta said, but added that "our primary goal remains to vaccinate all our chronic patients as soon as possible."
Vaccination of the elderly and the elderly, however, has already begun to be reflected in public hospitals, since the number of people over 80 who are affected by coronavirus and in need of hospitalization has decreased drastically.
"In our hospitals we now have people of younger ages and this results in a significant decrease in the average duration of their hospitalization," State Health Services Agency spokesman Charalambos Charilaou said in a statement.
"The average length of stay of patients has fallen to 6 days," Mr. Charilaou said, explaining that "unlike December and January now we have younger people who even experience severe symptoms and are admitted to the Increased Care Unit, recover much more easily and much faster than older people." The same, he said, "we see it in the Intensive Care Units where the average age has also fallen and we see patients being admitted, improving, leaving ICU and entering wards and then returning home."
In recent days, the SPOKESPERSON argued, "there has been a relative stabilisation in patient hospitalizations", although as he pointed out, "we still have 20 to 30 new admissions a day". "The encouraging thing," he said, "is that the Agency's design is fully implemented and at the moment we have no problem with the adequacy of our beds."
Moreover, he added, "planning and agreement with the private sector have also begun to be implemented. At the weekend four patients with other health problems were transferred to Private Hospital Intensive Care Units and the same happened with ten other patients from the Nicosia hospital."
The OKY, he stressed, "reiterates that its needs do not concern surgical specialties but what we need are pathological beds and beds in Intensive Care Units".
In conclusion, the SPOKESPERSON did not fail to reiterate that "despite the encouraging signs, the situation in hospitals remains fragile, there are ups and downs and everything will depend in the coming days on the behaviour of all of us and whether we observe the necessary measures".
Pending cabinet meeting
Once again today, everyone's eye is on the Presidential Council, where the Council of Ministers will meet, which is not out of the question to take decisions on the de-escalation of measures. The main issue in recent days is that of the return of the students of the Gymnasiums to their classes, but according to information from the "F", the members of the Advisory Scientific Committee, were invited by the Minister of Health officially, to study possible relaxes which could, if the epidemiological data permit, be implemented from 1 April as on 31 March the decrees that are now in force expire.
According to the same information, yesterday's meeting of the EES was planned for a discussion of relaxations concerning the reopening of outdoor and open spaces and parks (but not playgrounds), theatres and cinemas but also sport with priority in individual and team sports. At the same time, it was also open until yesterday to raise the issue of increasing the number of text messages that citizens are entitled to send around the clock for their journeys, especially at weekends.
