“Navarra Vaccination Coverage in 2022: Covid Vaccines Drop but Non-Covid Vaccines Remain Important”

In 2022 administered a total of 656,753 vaccinations in the Foral Community58.4% less than the previous year, when the doses reached 1,577,314. “The difference between the two years is motivated by vaccination against covid-19”Explain Manuel Garcia Cenozmedical specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health from the Epidemiology and Health Prevention Service of the Institute of Public and Labor Health of Navarra (ISPLN), who points out that last yearor “58% of the population of Navarre -387,555 people- received at least one dose of vaccine”.

The expert maintains that “although vaccinations are not compulsory, it is It is advisable to keep the calendar up to date vaccinations to achieve optimal levels of health. Nevertheless, “avoid about 5 million deaths a year” in the world and explains, in this regard, that “smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 thanks to the vaccination of the entire population. There are diseases that are close to being eliminated, such as poliomyelitis, measles or rubella, and the incidence of others has decreased to a minimum thanks to vaccination. In fact, “there are people who, since the incidence of these pathologies is very low, do not feel the need to be vaccinated”, but García Cenoz assures that “it is a mistake, since by reducing coverage the disease can be reintroduced in the population, as it has happened with measles”.

Non-covid vaccines drop

Thus, according to Health data, in 2020 367,359 vaccines were administered in the SNS-O, although excluding the doses against covid-19 there were 366,496. In 2021, without counting the injections against the coronavirus, 333,688 were given; and in 2022, 312,363, so that the vaccines for the rest of the pathologies were reduced by 14.8% in 2 years, but they clarify that there are fewer births.

And it is that, as he points out, “during the first months of the pandemic, the vaccinations of the calendar were delayed due to difficulty in accessing the health system”; a delay that “has been gradually recovered and, at present, We are in a situation similar to the pre-pandemic” as for the toppings vaccines, which are higher in the first 2 years of life, “when in many cases they are higher than 90%”.

Thus, in the hexavalent vaccine, which protects against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, poliomyelitis and invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease, coverage of the complete regimen (3 doses) rose to 95%. in 2021; in the conjugate against pneumococcus it remained at 98.9% (complete regimen); in that of meningococcal disease C (two doses) it dropped to 92.2%; in the triple viral (measles, rubella and mumps) it reached 94.3%; while in that of chickenpox it was 93%.

In the vaccine against the human papillomavirus, which is given in adolescence, coverage with a complete regimen reached 79%. In adults, however, vaccination coverage “is not that high.” Thus, in the 2022-2023 flu campaign it was 77% in people aged 75 and over, while it dropped to 68% in the population aged 65 to 74 and in the population aged 60 to 64 it stood at 45%. . In health personnel it was 61%.