The president of the National Association of Public Health Doctors (ANMSP) warns that, almost a year after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organization, Portugal continues without “a contingency plan and of action for pandemics or other natural disasters”. In an interview with the Radar Europa podcast, Gustavo Tato Borges emphasizes that it would be important for this plan “to be well established” so that “the different partners, when they go to work on the ground, know what is being asked of them, what their role is and how may or may not interact.”
The public health doctor recognizes that there is “the ability to be elastic, to respond to needs through dedication, selflessness and a quality of care that the Portuguese National Health Service has”, but that “everything is done this reactively.” “We need to do it proactively, we need to do it preventatively. We need to prepare, train ourselves and know exactly what mechanisms to activate and under what circumstances”, he explains.
Gustavo Tato Borges therefore asks for “a broad consensus” on the matter, so that, once ready by the General Directorate of Health, this plan “to combat diseases, pandemics and natural disasters”, will be approved by the new Government and avoid that “when there are new elections and another Executive comes, it ruins everything”.
In a Radar Europa episode dedicated to the lessons learned from Covid-19, Tato Borges recognizes that what was done during the pandemic, “in sharing information, in sharing mechanisms for purchasing and distributing vaccines”, worked quite effectively at European level .
“Now, this has to result in a set of effective measures that continue to protect Europe’s health in a very global way and distributed across different countries”, he states. However, “there is still a long way to go and Europe has to define” a way that guarantees “that countries with greater needs have effective and more considerable support than those with fewer needs”.
“Very positive balance” of vaccination in pharmacies
Also speaking to Radar Europa, the President of the Order of Pharmacists gives a “very positive assessment” of the vaccination process in pharmacies over the last few months.
Hélder Mota Filipe says that Portugal currently has “a number of people vaccinated for Covid-19 that is approximately two million, and two and a half million, a little more than that, for the flu”.
“Of this number of people vaccinated, 70% chose to be vaccinated in community pharmacies and 30% in health centers. Knowing that there was freedom of choice” regarding where to get vaccinated, these percentages, he says, “clearly demonstrate the usefulness of the measure and the services provided” by pharmacies and community pharmacists.
Radar Europa is a podcast Renaissancein partnership with Euranet Plus, the European radio network.
