Vaccines, pediatrician Rotili: “Pnpv 2023-25 ​​is good and focuses on coverage but organization is needed”

The National Vaccine Prevention Plan 2023-2025, “published in the Official Journal last August”, seeks to “harmonize vaccination coverage somewhat throughout Italy, but to do this requires a huge organizational commitment on the part of all the components of the public health: hospitals, IRCCS, universities, but, above all, local medicine which is able to increase vaccination coverage not only through vaccination centers and general practitioners, but above all with paediatricians of free choice, because the their mission is the prevention of children's illnesses”. Thus at Adnkronos Salute Pietro Luigi Rotili, deputy secretary of Fimp Rome and province and councilor of Simpe (Italian Society of Pediatricians) Lazio, during a training and refresher course for pediatricians held in Rome. Objective: take stock of vaccinations and epidemiological data on preventable diseases in Lazio.

Vaccinations are one of the “greatest achievements in the history of medicine and a very important public health tool – underlines Rotili, who is part of the working group for the vaccination strategies of the Lazio Region – because they manage to avoid potentially fatal diseases or those that can cause lead to serious consequences, as well as helping to save the State. In addition to protecting today's child, vaccinations protect tomorrow's adult and with the achievement of herd immunity it is also possible to protect those who, for various reasons, they cannot be vaccinated. We will thus have children, adults and the elderly immunized against potentially lethal diseases and, for this reason, I believe it is a great achievement for the NHS”.

But how can we increase vaccination resources, especially through vaccination recovery, even for those recommended? “Any vaccination strategy project must take into account some considerations – reasons the expert – First of all it must be linked to the updated epidemiology of the disease, adapted to all the most recent scientific acquisitions and linked to the most recent pharmacological achievements , that is, the availability of vaccines that have been proven safe and effective scientifically. It is clear that doing this is not easy.” Finally, he adds, “we have examples in Lazio, in Viterbo, Latina, in Rome, where the Pedivax project was implemented in the ASL Roma 1, in which family paediatricians vaccinate directly in their clinics. Here, if I can say something that What would really lead to an increase in vaccination coverage is for vaccinations to also be carried out in the clinics of family paediatricians. We already have previous experience in Tuscany where, by doing so, vaccination coverage has increased greatly”.