DIARYPHARMA | 19.01.2023 – 13:07
The Minister of Health and Consumption of the Board of AndalusiaCatalina García, has assessed the increase in investment in vaccines in the autonomous community, which currently stands at 104 million euros with the innovations incorporated this year, which means 146.45% more than in 2018, when 42.2 million were allocated. In this sense, he has pointed out that the Government of Andalusia has “engaged” in the preventionan area in which Andalusia is advancing “by leaps and bounds”.
“This places us,” he said, “along with other autonomous communities, at the forefront in Spain and even worldwide.” Thus, he has recognized the “great effort” that, without a doubt, will result in better health results for the Andalusian population, greater confidence among citizens in vaccination and in Public Health.
On the other hand, Catalina García has announced that Andalusia will extend vaccination against herpes zoster to two other risk groups: solid organ transplant recipients and those who are being treated with anti-JAK drugs, as agreed a month ago in the full of Interterritorial Council.
García, in front of the more than 1,500 health professionals attending this congress, either in person or online, has specified that this vaccination “will be extended to more risk groups with the aim of reaching, “once the current coverage is consolidated” , “to all recommended age groups”.
The head of Health and Consumption, who has reviewed all the novelties of the vaccination calendar for Andalusia for this year 2023, has also highlighted the substitution of the vaccine against pneumococcus of 13 serotypes for that of the 20-valent pneumococcus, in addition to the extension of its administration to adults from 60 to 72 years of age, thus expanding a cohort. The current coverage, he has indicated, is 64%, but in some age cohorts it exceeds 75%, “one of the highest in the world”, he has boasted, because “achieving high coverage with a calendar vaccine in adults is very complicated”.
Likewise, Catalina García has referred to the inclusion of children from 6 months to 4 years and 11 months in the vaccination campaign against gripe, which has already reached 42% coverage, “with which we have exceeded the forecasts for this first year”. In this sense, the counselor has thanked the more than 125,000 families who have already vaccinated their children for their responsibility “because, as she recalled,” children are the main transmitters and those who most need hospitalization in these cases “.
The counselor also recalled that “a few days ago we started vaccinating against papillomavirus in 12-year-old boys. We have started with the cohort born in 2011 (49,000 this year)”. “We thus break a barrier of lack of equity between boys and girls who had access to a measure for the prevention of HPV-associated cancer”, he stated. At the moment, she has stressed, “we already have 90% coverage in girls aged 12 to 18, a record figure in Andalusia (we have reached between 55 and 70% in years prior to 2019)”.
García has also cited the ACWY quadrivalent meningococcal vaccination in adolescents (81% coverage), but also in childhood (at 12 months), “being one of the few autonomous communities that do so”, and the meningococcal B vaccine , included in the calendar in 2021, which more than 60,000 Andalusian infants have already received, because “our goal is to ensure that no Andalusian child and their families suffer the consequences of meningitis.”
In this sense, García thanked the “involvement of everyone: the nurses of the Primary Care vaccination teams; the reference nurses from educational centers, who are doing a great job of recruiting in the centers, both with children and adolescents; the Preventive Medicine services of the hospitals, in the vaccination of risk groups; and, of course, the training of health professionals through the Andavac platform”.
The congress has also had the presence of the vice-councillor, Miguel Ángel Guzmán; General Secretary of Public Health and R+D+i, Isaac Túnez; the managing director of SAS, Diego Vargas; the general director of Public Health and Pharmaceutical Regulation, Jorge del Diego; the managing director of the EASP, Blanca Fernández-Capel; territorial delegate for Health and Consumption in Granada, Indalecio Sánchez-Montesinos; the coordinator of the Vaccination Plan in Andalusia and coordinator of this event, David Moreno; the director of Services and Health Professionals of the EASP, Carmen Guerrero; and the deputy director of Information Systems and ICT of the EASP and also coordinator of the conference, José Rodríguez.
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