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. 2022 Apr 1;40(15):2324-2330.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.064. Epub 2022 Feb 22.

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine use in Italian long term care centers: The GeroCovid VAX study

Angela Marie Abbatecola  1 , Raffaele Antonelli Incalzi  2 , Alba Malara  3 , Annapina Palmieri  4 , Anna Di Lonardo  4 , Giorgio Fedele  5 , Paola Stefanelli  5 , Gilda Borselli  6 , Marcello Russo  7 , Marianna Noale  8 , Stefano Fumagalli  9 , Pietro Gareri  10 , Enrico Mossello  9 , Caterina Trevisan  11 , Stefano Volpato  12 , Fabio Monzani  13 , Alessandra Coin  14 , Giuseppe Bellelli  15 , Chukwuma Okoye  16 , Susanna Del Signore  17 , Gianluca Zia  17 , Elisa Bottoni  18 , Carmine Cafariello  19 , Graziano Onder  4 ; GeroCovid Vax Working Group
Affiliations

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine use in Italian long term care centers: The GeroCovid VAX study

Angela Marie Abbatecola et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed routine care practice for older persons, especially in those with frailty living in long term care (LTC) facilities. Due to the high mortality rates of Nursing home (NH) residents during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, priority for COVID-19 vaccinations was given to this vulnerable population. However, the safety and efficacy of such vaccines in older frail elders remains questionable due to the fact that initial randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for such vaccines did not include this population. This type of discrimination in patient participation in RCTs continues and has been recognized in the literature. Nevertheless, in the context of a worldwide emergency, COVID-19 vaccination in older persons living in LTC facilities may provide a solid basis to protect against negative outcomes, such as COVID-19 infection and death. In this report, we present the protocol of the GeroCovid Vax study, an Italian study that began in February 2021 which is aimed at investigating the safety and efficacy of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations in older persons living in LTCs. This protocol specially aims to continuously and closely monitor events related to- and following- the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in elderly living in LTC facilities. In this report, we will provide information related to the study protocol and describe baseline characteristics of the sample.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccine; Elderly; Frailty syndrome; GeroCovid Vax; Long term care (LTC); Nursing homes (NH); Safety.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Participant recruitment and follow-up flow diagram.
Fig. 2a
Fig. 2a
Timeline description for Clinical GeroCovid Vax data collection and parameters at each observation follow up.
Fig. 2b
Fig. 2b
Timeline description.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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