The Government of Castilla-La Mancha has approved the acquisition of 64,656 doses of vaccines against herpes zoster for the vaccination schedule of Castilla-La Mancha during 2023. To avoid or minimize this disease, the Castilian-La Mancha Government includes vaccination against herpes zoster in its annual calendar with the recommendation to all people turning 65 and 80 years of age. This disease is produced by the same chickenpox virus in people who have suffered from the disease; It is a virus that remains latent and arises opportunistically due to a drop in defenses or due to other diseases.
To this end, as reported by the Equality Minister and spokesperson, Blanca Fernández, the regional Executive will allocate more than eight million euros as a preventive measure, taking into account that herpes zoster is a very prevalent disease and that it presents certain conditions of risk. In this sense, it can be said that although It has a low mortality, the complications that it can present can cause disability and decrease the quality of life, in addition to entailing the direct costs of health care (Primary Care, specialized consultations, hospital admissions, pharmacological prescriptions) and the loss of productivity in younger people and of caregivers in older patients.
Precisely, Blanca Fernandez recalled that last December the new vaccination schedule which entered into force in January and which includes the recommended vaccines throughout life, with some novelties, including vaccination against diseases caused by the human papillomavirus in boys and girls when they reach 12 years of age old; serogroup B meningococcal disease in infants; influenza in ages between 6 and 59 months of life; pneumococcal disease with conjugate vaccine at age 65 and herpes zoster.
The counselor and spokesperson has highlighted that from the Government of Castilla-La Mancha will invest this year 30 million in vaccines“a very high figure but one that is worth it because investing in vaccination is investing in protection, disease prevention, public health and quality of life”.
