“super-freezer”, municipal centers … how Alsace prepares to vaccinate



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It is a super freezer at the center of all attention: a special refrigerator will be delivered next week (from Thursday 10 December) to the Strasbourg hospital to store the very first doses of coronavirus vaccines. Because the challenge of this campaign, which will begin in retirement homes, is respect The cold chain, from manufacturing the vaccine until it is inoculated to patients. The first vaccines available should be those from Moderna and Pfizer, which should be stored at -20 and -80 degrees respectively.

France has bought 50 super freezers and will distribute them one in each department. They will be delivered next week, starting December 10th. In the Lower Rhine, he will be at the Strasbourg hospital, the nerve center of the region. “This will be the logistical basis for storing these vaccines, before sending them anywhere in the ward so that treating doctors can vaccinate their patients, first in nursing homes “ confirms Alexandre Feltz, health assistant of the city of Strasbourg. For Haut-Rhin, it should be the hospital in Mulhouse or Colmar.

Delivering the 243 Alsatian retirement homes: a logistical challenge

So you will need to go fast. Once removed from the freezer, these vaccines should be returned to the refrigerator e inoculated within 4-5 days maximum. Distribution to 243 retirement homes in Alsace is therefore a huge logistical challenge. “It’s not the Ardennes and its 25 nursing homes … “, says an ARS official. “In retirement homes we are ready “, for his part, Pascal Meyvaert, general practitioner in Gerstheim and president of the association of coordinating doctors of Ehpad of Alsace. “Residents are concentrated in our factories and then we are used to vaccinating them against seasonal flu, for example. The difficult part is the transport to the nursing home “, confirmation.

Another difficulty: these vaccines are called “multidose”. When you open a bottle, it is generally for five people, although the packaging remains to be defined. And it’s not about throwing it away …

In Strasbourg, a municipal center mobilized

The campaign will therefore strongly mobilize treating doctors. “It is very important to pass these vaccines through these doctors who have the confidence of the population “, says Alexandre Feltz, convinced that vaccination is not mandatory. “We must not make the mistake we made with the H1N1 flu where we went to large vaccination centers with doctors people don’t know. “. The city of Strasbourg will therefore not mobilize large vaccination centers, such as Berlin or Paris, but will mobilize on the other hand its municipal vaccination center, which brings together temporary doctors and a coordinating nurse. It is located in the administrative center near the Etoile park.

Because Strasbourg is one of the few cities in France to have maintained municipal control over vaccinations. “We can come in addition to going to people who have no doctors, who are housed in social hotels or emergency reception centers, so that everyone has access to the vaccine, even the most precarious. “.



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