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The Biden administration on Thursday announced new plans to allocate Covid-19 vaccines to dialysis centers across the country. This new partnership with dialysis clinics is an effort to immunize people on dialysis, as well as healthcare workers in outpatient dialysis clinics.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, applauded the partnership in a written statement released Thursday, saying she was “proud” that the CDC has partnered with organizations of dialysis providers. to support the immunization of most dialysis patients and healthcare workers.
“This effort is another important step in ensuring that vaccines reach the most medically vulnerable communities and that equity continues to anchor our efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Walensky in the press release.
Dialysis is used to treat people with kidney failure, which affects more than half a million people in the United States, and most people go to a dialysis center for treatment.
“Each year, more than 550,000 people receive regular dialysis treatments as part of the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease program. The efforts of dialysis partners will integrate clinics that participate in the Medicare program to administer COVID-19 vaccines to their patients and workers, “Walensky said, adding that dialysis centers already have” long-standing “experience in administration of vaccines, such as influenza and hepatitis B vaccines.
Walensky added that people on dialysis often have more severe results when they contract Covid-19, half require hospitalization and 20% to 30% die, she said.
“In addition, advanced stage chronic kidney disease disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities, including African Americans, Hispanics, and Native American / Alaskan Indians,” Walensky said. “Dialysis clinics offer an innovative and reliable route to help COVID-19 vaccines reach populations that have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response, the nonprofit US Kidney Fund released a statement Thursday applauding the White House’s decision to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to dialysis centers. The American Society of Nephrology tweeted a link to the White House announcement regarding the dialysis program, calling it “big news.”
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