The Preventive Medicine Service of the Integrated Care Management of Albacete has not only recovered throughout 2022 the activity it had lost in the last two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, especially in terms of vaccination for international travel, but also concerns the The increase in indications for more diseases of immunosuppressive biological treatments that weaken the immune system of those who take them, has meant that the request for advice on administering vaccines to patients in these risk groups has doubled compared to data from the 2019, which is already starting to generate a significant increase in health pressure in this facility of the University Hospital Complex of Albacete. Thus, in the last year 2022, this Service attended 4,282 consultations, both for the administration of serums for tourist trips and for the immunization of the population of risk groups. In 2021, activity on this resource was 3,577 queries, which translates overall to an increase in activity in 2022 of almost 20%.
The head of the preventive medicine and public health service of the integrated care management of Albacete, Jesús García Guerrero, assured that “2022 was the year with the highest number of consultations in which we participated, surpassing the pre-pandemic data “. Of course, he acknowledged that this increase “has occurred to the detriment of the vaccination of risk groups which requires ever more commitment, because demand has grown exponentially, so much so that if we no longer administer serums it is because we do not have free estimates. So much so that Dr. García Guerrero highlighted the need to provide the Service with an additional full consultation, in the afternoon, to meet current demand.
As for international travel, the forecaster stressed that international consultation on vaccination is gradually recovering. even if at the end of 2019 it had not yet reached the data of 2019.
Thus, of the 4,282 consultations carried out by the Preventive Medicine Service, 3,349 came from risk groups and 933 from travellers. Similarly, 807 corresponded to first visits and 2,542 to subsequent visits.
Traveler consultation activity during 2022 has doubled from the number recorded in 2021, rising from 933 visits last year to 451 in 2021, which represents a 107% increase, the majority of consultations being first visits ( 632), while 301 were later.
However, although an increase in vaccination of risk groups was already observed in 2019, with 2,225 consultations carried out at the CHUA Preventive Medicine Service, the figures are much lower than the 3,349 treatments provided in 2022. At that time, traveler requests registered were 1,719, 54.3% more than those registered last year.
During 2022, the nurses of the Preventive Medicine Service administered 6,070 vaccines. Of these, 5,097 to patients included in the risk groups, and almost a thousand, 973, to citizens for international travel reasons.
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