Vaccinarsi in Sardegna

Awaiting the new National Preventive Vaccination Plan 2020-2022, the Strategic Plan "SARS-CoV-2/COVID19 Vaccination" has been recently published. This plan, developed by the Ministry of Health, the extraordinary commissioner for the COVID-19 emergency, the Higher Health Institute (ISS), the National Agency for Regional Health Services (AgeNaS) and the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), outlines how to implement the vaccination strategy to best meet Italian needs and ensure the protection of the individual and the community by reducing the impact of the pandemic and its sequelae.

The Region of Sardinia, interpreting the ministerial provisions, has tailored its vaccination campaign to the Sardinian regional context, giving priority to frontline healthcare workers and to all professional figures involved in the healthcare chain, subsequently to vulnerable groups including patients suffering from rare diseases, nephropathic, oncological, oncohaematological, transplanted, diabetic, thalassaemic, HIV-positive patients, those with autoimmune diseases, heart patients, bronchopneumopaths, alongside the police, school staff, university staff and student trainees enrolled in Medicine and Surgery, Dentistry and Dental Prosthetics, Pharmacy and Health Professions degree courses.

Sassari University Hospital has acted promptly to meet these needs by setting up a vaccination hub which has succeeded in administering over 30,000 vaccinations to the above categories.

On 13 June 2021, Sassari University Hospital went one step further by making the COVID-19 jab available to the general public as well. In cooperation with the University of Sassari, which provided the premises for the vaccination hub (part of the Department of Medicine’s teaching centre, located at the back of Palazzo Clemente), the AOU of Sassari provided 6 teams of doctors, nurses and administrative staff vaccinating more than 1,000 users who booked through the online platform of the Italian Post Office.

With an average of 110 jabs per hour for each team, queues were cleared in an orderly manner within the allotted time: by 6.30 p.m., 950 users had already been vaccinated, and by the end of the day, more than 1,000 had been vaccinated. A wide range of citizens, from workers in commerce, tourism, university students, pensioners and several minors accompanied by their parents, chose to receive the first dose of vaccine in the outpatient clinics of the centre in Viale San Pietro.

This first "experimental" experience, carried out at the hub provided by University of Sassari to the AOU Sassari in May 2021, was a resounding success, as confirmed by the enthusiastic reactions of the younger participants, who described the day as "an opportunity for rebirth after months of isolation and discouragement".

This strategy is a different one from the AOU’s recent activity. In the words of the Extraordinary Commissioner of the AOU, Antonio Lorenzo Spano: “we usually deal with a particular target population such as the vulnerable, who our vaccination campaign was initially aimed at. Today, we have decided to open up to the entire population to lend a hand and reach general immunisation as soon as possible. I feel we have taken an important step, exceeding 1,000 vaccinations".

Many workers involved in the business and tourism sectors were among those vaccinated on this important day. Dr Antonello Serra, coordinator of the vaccine hub in Viale San Pietro together with Prof. Paolo Castiglia, state that "to date, the vaccine centre of our Azienda Opsedaliero-Universitaria has also vaccinated certain categories of workers. Right now, we have decided to make an extra effort, also in view of the need to revive Sardinia's economy, which is burdened by particularly high unemployment rates. As such, we have asked the Region to open up our lists. The virus has not disappeared, it still resists and must be isolated, to avoid the risk of its resurgence after the summer, perhaps with variants capable of resisting vaccine protection”.

Numerous students also chose the opening of the AOU lists as an opportunity to get vaccinated. "This initiative," adds Professor Paolo Castiglia, "makes it possible on the one hand to provide vaccination slots to various categories, as well as to give access to students in the Sassari area who had not yet been able to access them."

Vaccinarsinsardegna.org, together with its entire team and the doctors in specialist training in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at the University of Sassari, were also keen to be present at this important event. Throughout the day, the Vaccinarsinsardegna team remained on hand to offer support to the vaccination teams and to receive the public with communication and awareness-raising activities and by distributing gadgets and informative material.

“In these months of intense work," continues Prof. Castiglia, "an enormous contribution to scientific information on vaccines has been made by the web portal www.vaccinarsiinsardegna.org, which, through its medical-scientific communication activities on vaccinations, and through its virtual advice desk (open 24 hours a day), has provided up-to-date and scientifically proven news, while also offering timely answers to all citizens. In particular, recent months have seen a veritable explosion of searches and consultations; since February, more than 110,000 users have logged on, with 250,000 pages viewed. The English-language section of the website has been accessed by more than 6,000 foreigners requiring information on vaccinations in the area”.

Thanks are also due to the entire Vaccinarsinsardegna team, and in particular to the Manager, for having provided answers on the subject of vaccinations (booking procedures, vaccination sites, priority categories, vaccination schedules, contacts, etc.) to the emails sent to the site by thousands of citizens from Sardinia and elsewhere.

Regarding the type of online consultation, an interesting insight into the data recorded by our site and those recorded by the other portals of the Italian Network VaccinarSì can be found in an article published in recent weeks on the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health entitled: Health communication in the COVID-19 era: Experiences from the Italian vaccinarsì network websites.

We invite all users to stay connected to our website so as not to miss future updates and remind the public that, should they need any information or clarification, the virtual consultation service at Vaccinarsinsardegna.org is constantly available in the "Contact us" section, accessed through the following link: https://www.vaccinarsinsardegna.org/en/contact-us.

The Vaccinarsinsardegna.org team is proud to have participated in this important event dedicated to preventive vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, and wishes to thank the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria and the University of Sassari for the commitment and dedication shown in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic during this difficult period. The tirelessness and tenacity shown especially in these unprecedented times, together with the synergy and collaboration of the academic and health care worlds, have been the winning factor not only for the resounding success of the open day, but also for conveying to the population the importance of vaccines as a life-saving weapon in prevention.