The Directorate-General of Health (DGS) will remove the age limitation in administering the Janssen vaccine to men, said today, June 2, the coordinator of the 'Task Force' for the vaccination plan against covid-19.
“The DGS is preparing a very significant change. The vaccine was limited to people over 50 and what the new data brought is that the risk, although very low - one in a million - was essentially concentrated in females under 50 years. What is going to be done is to remove this limitation to the male sex», affirmed Henrique Gouveia e Melo.
The coordinator of the 'Task Force', who announced this news at the end of his participation in the National Congress of the Medical Association, taking place in Coimbra, said that when this limitation is removed, the «possibility of giving the vaccine to a a good million or a million and a half Portuguese».
Questioned by the Lusa agency, Henrique Gouveia e Melo said that the decisions should be operationalized within "a week and a half", so they are on time, as the vaccination of the population over 50 years old and that is not affected by this limitation.
According to the official, the pace of vaccination "is only dependent on the vaccines that arrive in Portugal", currently having the capacity to vaccinate 100 people a day.
If necessary and with more hours of daily work, the country may have the capacity to vaccinate 120 to 140 thousand people a day, he said.
«We managed to vaccinate 100 Portuguese people with six hours of work a day in these vaccination centers. If we increase it to 10 hours a day, we increase the pace», he explained.
During the National Congress of the Medical Association, Gouveia e Melo stressed that the fight against the pandemic has to be seen as a war, noting that there have been more deaths caused by covid-19 in Portugal than the Portuguese soldiers who died during the 13 years of Colonial War.
In his speech, the coordinator of the 'Task Force' also drew attention to selfishness, stressing the need for rich countries to support vaccination in poorer countries.
“If rich countries don't vaccinate and don't help poor countries, the 'boomerang' effect could hit rich countries again. We have to do this as soon as possible», he defended.
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