The Ministry of Health trusts that the fourth dose of the anticovid vaccine grant supplementary protection for “four or five months” to Asturians over 80 years of age and those living in residences. The health authorities of the region have asked the Ministry of Health to apply this fourth injection next May – which is the second booster dose – to the approximately 85,000 inhabitants of the region who have already completed eight decades of life.
The Ministry has not yet responded, and its position seems unlikely to accept this proposal. And it is that Health intends that vaccination advances in a synchronized manner throughout the country, and there are several –in fact, almost all– the autonomous communities whose covid incidence rates are lower than that of the Principality and do not express the same need.
Guaranteed effectiveness.
“There is no doubt about the effectiveness of the vaccines,” underlines Mario Margolles, head of the Epidemiological Surveillance service of the Ministry of Health. Dr. Margolles does not grant credibility to those who maintain that, with a coronavirus mutated on many occasions, the effectiveness of vaccines has been greatly reduced. “The effectiveness is close to 95 percent to prevent deaths and ICU admissions, and it can be useful to stop this specific situation that we have, obviously not for three years,” says the head of Epidemiological Surveillance. And he adds: “It is also true that, according to the world literature, from the fourth or fifth month, protection declines for less serious events, going from 95 percent to 55 percent.”
Moments of imminent risk.
Margolles admits that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines present “a problem due to the short duration of their effects, which leads us to put them in the moments in which we have a more imminent risk, such as the current one; from there derives our proposal”. Asturias currently registers the second highest incidence of coronavirus in all of Spain among the population over 60 years of age. In this age group, the rate in Asturias in the last fourteen days is 1,129 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, only surpassed by the 1,211 in Navarra. The average for the country as a whole is 555 per 100,000. The head of Epidemiological Surveillance recognizes the possibility that “we will not achieve the same coverage as with previous doses, but the important thing is that every dose given is guaranteed protection for a specific period: four or five months.”
Accounted for 169 cases of new acute childhood hepatitis.
The cases of acute childhood hepatitis of unknown origin initially reported in the United Kingdom continue to increase, and at least 169 have already been confirmed in 11 countries, one of them fatal, reported the World Health Organization (WHO). Most of the cases have been registered in Europe, except for nine confirmed in the United States and 12 in Israel; The United Kingdom is the one that has reported the most (114), followed by Spain (13), the WHO said in a statement. None have appeared in Asturias.
Pain, diarrhea and vomiting.
The UN health agency said that 17 of the children affected (approximately one in ten) by the new hepatitis have needed a liver transplant after contracting this new disease, which usually leads to abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting. According to the WHO, it could be caused by an adenovirus, perhaps type 41. According to the WHO, it is not yet clear if there has been an increase in cases or if it is a normal pattern that had not been detected until now. However, the organization expressed concern that an adenovirus, normally associated with mild respiratory ailments, may be causing acute liver inflammation.
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