Covid:19: Italy has wasted the sacrifices of the first wave, say experts
Marta Paterlini
Abstract
In October, Giulia Chiarcossi, 80, called her doctor's office to arrange her flu vaccination, as she has done every year for the past 15 years, usually getting it done straightaway."My family doctor told me to call back in November," she says, a little surprised.There were no flu vaccinations available.Mindful of the dangers of winter and a potential twin epidemic of covid-19 and influenza, the Italian Ministry of Health has for months urged regions to start administering flu vaccinations early and extend free coverage to people over 60.Chiarcossi lives in Brescia in the northern region of Lombardy, one of the epicentres of the first coronavirus wave, which began in February.Italy's most wealthy and populous region, Lombardy was until May the hardest hit region in the whole of Europe. 1 Yet despite this, and the ministry's plea, Lombardy's regional government did not place its vaccine orders until September and started vaccinating only in mid-October.Some people have received flu vaccinations, but Chiarcossi is one of many who must wait until an unspecified date in November.More than one million Italians have been infected with covid-19 to date."Now, again, it seems that Italy is trying to chase the virus instead of containing [it]," says Alberto Mantovani, scientific director of the Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan."We are paying for a structural failure of our primary care.