ROME (AP) – Italy’s leading teacher union is refusing plans for educators under 55 years of age to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, rather than vaccines that it believes provide better protection, evidence that lobby groups are competing for vaccines specifics like the virus and its variants spread across 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 he was not consulted about the decision to start the vaccination campaign for teachers ahead of schedule, with some of the first 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca that arrived over the weekend.
The Italian government readjusted its vaccination plans last week after Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reduced vaccine deliveries and the Italian pharmaceutical agency gave “preferential use” to AstraZeneca vaccines for people aged 18 to 55. The government is now targeting Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to inoculate people over 80 by assigning AstraZeneca jabs to younger workers at risk.
The provisional analysis of tests in final-stage humans showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was 70.4% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 after two doses. Pfizer and Moderna reported preliminary results from late-stage studies, showing that their vaccines were almost 95% effective.
Over the weekend, South Africa suspended plans to inoculate frontline health workers with AstraZeneca after a small clinical trial suggested that it is not effective in preventing mild to moderate diseases of the dominant variant in the country.
To date, Italy has identified a person who has tested positive for the South African variant who arrived on a flight from the continent, although there have been more cases of the variants identified in Britain and Brazil. But on Monday, the Austrian government issued an alert against travel to its province of Tyrol, which borders northern Italy, after 293 infections of the variant identified in South Africa were confirmed there.
Northern Italy has been the hardest hit part of the country since the first locally transmitted case was confirmed on February 21 in Lombardy and became Europe’s only epicenter. Although infections across the country have remained stable for several weeks – about 8,000 new confirmed cases were reported on Monday and 307 new deaths – northern regions continue to record the highest number of infections and deaths. With more than 90,000 dead, Italy has the second highest number of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in Europe, after Great Britain.
The union said school officials questioned whether they should accept the AstraZeneca vaccine, as it “claimed lower vaccination coverage compared to the more effective Pfizer and Moderna vaccines”.
The virus czar of Italy, Domenico Arcuri, defended the decision to target AstraZeneca vaccines to younger workers, saying that the dual purpose of Italy’s campaign is to reduce overall mortality among the elderly who are at the greatest risk of fatal complications, and reduce the spread of the virus virus among young people.
“We have a new weapon that allows us to expand the categories to be vaccinated,” Arcuri told reporters on Friday.
Originally, Italy’s national vaccine plan prioritized health professionals and nursing home residents with the first doses of vaccine that arrived, followed by people over 80.
But the new “preferred use” designation for AstraZeneca’s photos means that a side campaign begins this week for teachers under 55, police, 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. On Monday in Rome, the first doses for people over 80 and who do not live in nursing homes were started in local hospitals.
“I have seven grandchildren waiting for a hug,” said a satisfied Abramo Abrusca when he received his photo at Pfizer.