Contribute to public health and scientific dissemination of advances in the field of influenza vaccination. This has been the goal of the VII Seqirus Conference on Flu Update held in Valencia organized by Seqirus. The company organizes this annual medical-scientific meeting, bringing together top-level experts from both the national and international scene.
The conferences have had Jose Antonio Lluch Rodrigohead of the Service for Health Promotion and Prevention in the Stages of Life of the Ministry of Universal Health and Public Health of Valencia, as scientific coordinator.
“The last two flu seasons have been surrounded by uncertainty due to the hegemony of COVID-19. However, experts continue to warn that we must be alert to the behavior of this virus and prevent it in the most effective way: by vaccinating”, he pointed out. Toni Lloret, director of Seqirus for the Southern Europe Cluster.
“In this sense, the holding of the Seqirus Flu Update Conference favors the creation of spaces for dialogue between all the actors in the sector. In this way, Seqirus continues to reinforce its commitment to informing about the importance of flu vaccination”, he added.
Pharmacoeconomics and universal vaccination
The inaugural conference was given by Vicente Bellver Capella, professor at the Department of Philosophy of Law and Political Philosophy at the University of Valencia, who applauded the holding of the event. Subsequently, a round table was held with the presence of Adolfo Garcia Tailorco-director of the Global Health & Emerging Pathogens Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, who has underlined the importance of universal vaccination as a fundamental measure of influenza prevention.
The second session of the day has revolved around the pharmacoeconomics and efficacy of vaccines, where the intervention of Sergio Marquez Pelaez associate professor of the Economic Analysis Area of the Olavide University, who has addressed the importance of “improved” vaccines with a cost-effectiveness analysis between the adjuvanted vaccine and the high-dose vaccine in people over 65 years of age.
The day concluded with a debate, led by Ofelia Gimeno Forner, general director of Public Health and Addictions of Valencia, in which the different vaccination strategies after the COVID-19 pandemic launched by the different CCs have been addressed. AA. In this sense, the public health directors of the regions participating in the debate have agreed that the outbreak of COVID has helped increase flu vaccination coverage in the last two seasons.
Strategies, patients and new vaccines
At the beginning of the second day of the conference, the focus was placed on the importance of the role of nurses within vaccination strategies. An issue to which Immaculate Cuesta Esteve, from the Public Health Subdirectorate of the Zaragoza Department of Health, added that “in nursing we are committed to the triple C: capturing, conquering and convincing. In this way, we intend that the target population be vaccinated against the flu, since vaccines protect and save lives”.
Subsequently, there was a debate on the vaccination information systems in the Valencian Community, to which Eliseo Pastor Villalbahead of the Health Promotion and Coordination Section of the Health Promotion Service in Valencia, has indicated that “the objective of registering the vaccines administered and rejected is to monitor coverage in real time, both by age groups and sex, such as by vaccine administered, region, and risk groups.”
The implications that the flu has for cardiology and pulmonology patients are issues that have also been discussed, with the presentations of Vicente Bertomeufrom the Cardiology Service of the San Juan de Alicante University Hospital, who stated that the current pandemic has made doctors and the general population aware of the importance of vaccination, but, however, the same sensitivity does not exist in patients with cardiovascular disease, specifically in the context of Coronary Disease, and Joan Soriano Ortiz, from the Pneumology Service of the Hospital Universitario de la Princesa, in Madrid, who pointed out that “the majority of deaths caused by the flu are preventable. Cases are currently declining, in part thanks to the population strategy we have for flu vaccination, but also thanks to our health system in Spain”.
The conference concluded with a session on the effectiveness of the new flu vaccines, moderated by Raul Ortiz de Lejarazumicrobiologist from the University of Valladolid, and with the voices of Joan Puig Barberà, from the Fisabio Vaccine Research Area, and Jose María Eiros Bouza, head of the Microbiology Service of the Río Hortega University Hospital and director of the National Influenza Center of Valladolid. In this sense, Eiros has stressed that “the adjuvanted influenza vaccine shows significant effectiveness against the conventional vaccine in people over 65 years of age”. The closing conference, focused on the process through which vaccines pass at a logistical level until they reach the patient, was given by Jose Luis Sanz Otero CEO of the Cofares group, who has pointed out that “we think very clearly that we are in the era where the patient should be at the center”.
Finally, the official closure has had the contribution of Amos Garcia Rojaspresident of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV)who has pointed out that “a vaccine by itself is important, but there must be health policies so that the vaccine is administered in the case of the person who needs it”.
