Vaccinations against Covid-19 and flu begin today and aim to cover more than two million people.

The Covid-19 and flu vaccination campaign begins this Friday in NHS departments and pharmacies and covers people over 60, people with high-risk health conditions, healthcare workers and those working in care homes.

Between 2 million and 2.5 million people are expected to be vaccinated, according to Deputy Health Director General Andre Peralta Santos.

In the SNS, vaccination will be carried out by people under 60 years of age with risk pathologies, pregnant women and healthcare professionals (public and private) and other health services, students undergoing clinical internships, firefighters involved in transporting patients. and caregivers of dependent people.

Vaccination will also be carried out in homes, integrated care networks and in prisons by NHS staff.

Community pharmacies will administer the Covid-19 vaccine to over-60s for the first time, with around 6,000 pharmacists authorized to do so in more than 2,300 pharmacies that have joined the 2023/2024 seasonal vaccination campaign.

Speaking to Lusa, the president of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Association, Manuela Pacheco, said that “everything is ready” for the start of vaccinations and that the user coverage was “very high” not only at the planning level at the platform level, but also in substance. at the local level, with people reaching out, asking, calling and asking to save vaccines.

Manuela Pacheco said the appointments must be “very well planned, very well planned” because you cannot run the “risk of wasting and then losing the vaccine.”

“What we do is take note of vaccination intentions, especially since the user is free to choose the vaccine or vaccines he wants to take and whether he wants to take them together or wait,” he said, assuring that “this is not due to the lack of access that the Portuguese are not going to get vaccinated,” since “there are more than 1,000 public clinics” and more than 2,300 pharmacies where they can do it.

In addition, he emphasized that the seasonal vaccination campaign has never started so early: “Last year it was in the second half of October, just like two years ago. …) it gives us a certain peace of mind” to develop this expertise for which pharmacists have been trained.

According to the association’s president, pharmacies that have requested vaccines are already receiving them, ensuring there is no shortage of vaccines.

“This year there will be no shortage of vaccines, we will have an extended period of administration and diversification of administration sites, so that even the most remote villages will have a pharmacy that will administer them. I don’t think this is a problem, on the contrary, and we need to reassure people, especially since we are at the beginning of autumn, but we still have a lot of summer leftovers,” he said.

For Manuela Pacheco, the possibility of administering the Covid-19 vaccine in pharmacies is a “recognition” that they have been looking forward to “for a long time.”