Italy continues to face low flu vaccine coverage, especially among the groups most susceptible to complications of the disease, namely the elderly over 65 and frail patients. Currently, 50 percent of these people either do not receive a dose of flu vaccine at all, or do not have access to the most suitable vaccines - so-called "boosters" - contrary to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. This situation is generated by bureaucratic, organizational and cultural problems, which harm not only the health of the most vulnerable population, but also the sustainability of the National Health Service. These problems result in additional costs for hospitalizations and intensive care admissions, and which could be avoided through increased use of appropriate vaccination, the most effective and safe strategy to prevent influenza, reduce its complications and related costs, social and health. In response to this situation, Italy's leading experts in geriatrics, hygiene and public health, have met in a board and developed a Position Paper addressed to health care institutions to guide decisions to improve influenza vaccination coverage rates presented yesterday at the Chamber of Deputies on the occasion of European Influenza Day. The hitherto unprecedented collapse in vaccination coverage," the paper says, "and the consequent impact of flu epidemics on at-risk groups, make incisive interventions by public decision makers to improve planning at the central level and develop more effective synergies at the regional and local levels no longer procrastinable. Above all, the paper's authors call the attention of health care institutions to the issue of vaccination appropriateness, a central aspect of health protection, particularly of the elderly and frail: according to the experts, it is necessary to provide clear recommendations on the priority choice of enhanced influenza vaccines, which, as demonstrated by the most recent scientific evidence, are the only ones indicated and recommended, by virtue of their effectiveness in protecting against the virus, for people who are older and for those debilitated by other diseases or previous treatments, such as the immunocompromised.
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