The campaign was officially launched on Thursday 3 June with the opening of the UniSalute vaccine hub in Bologna with the attendance of General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, the Extraordinary Commissioner for the implementation and coordination of measures to reduce and tackle the Covid-19 emergency and carry out the Italian vaccination campaign; Carlo Cimbri, Managing Director and Group CEO of the Unipol Group; the Chairperson of the Unipol Group, Pierluigi Stefanini; and regional and local officials.
This initiative was organised by UniSalute, Unipol Group’s health insurance company, and is also aimed at leading Italian businesses – companies, banks or healthcare funds who have requested it – to speed up the relaunch of the country. UniSalute has prepared about 200 sites to administer the vaccines all over Italy, four specialist hubs in Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna and a mobile unit for a potential total catchment area of over 800 thousand people.
The plan was developed in coordination with the Extraordinary Commissioner’s Unit led by General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo. It offers additional capacity for vaccinations and complements the vaccination plans organised by the regional health authorities to support the business world in the organisation and provision of Covid-19 vaccines to their employees.
The vaccines will be administered by specialised healthcare workers in very well-equipped facilities that form part of the Insurance Company’s network. The first doses of the vaccine will be administered in Lazio, Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, Marche, Calabria, Sardinia, Liguria, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Campania and Sicily. This will then be followed in the other Regions.
About 20 vaccine centres were set up in Emilia Romagna, along with a hub for a potential catchment area of about 75 thousand people. The hub in Bologna in particular is at the Unipol Gruppo Congress Centre which has an estimated vaccine capacity of 1,900 vaccines daily.
A number of big UniSalute customers joined the vaccine plan, including BPER, ANCC (Coop), ANCD (Conad), the San.Arti Fund, and little by little, important supplementary healthcare funds and businesses will join the programme to show how much they wish to reboot the entire working fabric of the country.
The Unipol Group vaccine plan is one of the biggest projects that the Group has implemented to support the country in view of the increasing need for social-healthcare assistance which has increased due to the pandemic. This initiative represents a true benefit for customers, agents and all employees and family members, confirming Unipol’s central role in the process of integrating public and private healthcare.
