The pilot plan for the flu vaccination for children starts in 24 educational centers in the Balearic Islands

PALMA October 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The pilot plan to vaccinate children against the flu in educational institutions in the Balearic Islands started this Monday with vaccination at CEIP Pintor Torrent in Ciutadella. The plan calls for the vaccination to be given to 2,900 pupils from 24 centers in the Islands up to 14 November.

The Minister of Health, Manuela García, visited this Monday the Menorcan center where the pilot plan has started, where 33 percent of the children under the age of five who were called to be vaccinated against the flu with parental consent.

The initiative, as reported by the Ministry in a press release, was launched together with the Ministry of Education and Universities and is trying to vaccinate against this virus to small children in the second cycle of early childhood education in schools.

Therefore, from this Monday until November 14, 2,900 children from 24 schools in the Islands will be able to receive the vaccine at their educational institution. The percentage of acceptance of this vaccine in schools has been, in Mallorca, 52 percent; 40 percent in Menorca; 32.3 percent in Ibiza and 50 percent in Formentera.

“We understand that providing and enabling vaccination of the little ones in schools, so that parents do not have to take them to health centers, can help protect a particularly vulnerable population group ,” said the consultant.

Likewise, he has stressed the need to vaccinate children under the age of five, who are “more likely to suffer from a more severe disease, suffer more complications and have more hospitalizations.”

In this way, the flu vaccination starts in the schools that are part of this pilot plan, a novelty of the 2024-2025 flu campaign. As they have remembered, small children are always vaccinated in schools voluntarily and with the informed consent of their parents or guardians.

The target number of children in this initiative is children in the second cycle of early childhood education, that is, students born in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The pilot experience includes 24 public schools, subsidized and private in the Balearic Islands. In particular, 11 schools from Mallorca, eight from Ibiza and Formentera and five from Menorca will participate.

QUEEN OF THE GAILS

This Monday, vaccination also begins for all risk groups, including children between six and 59 months. In this way, you can make an appointment to vaccinate children through the Government website, the appointment application or by calling the Infosalut phone number.

The Ministry has stated that the reason for the universal vaccination of this group, which has already been implemented in the last campaign, is that children of this age often suffer from the flu big and, sometimes, very bad. In addition, they are usually the main transmitters of influenza virus to other target groups.

This not only provides individual protection to the minor, but it also protects vulnerable people around them from contamination, they recalled.

Therefore, the vaccination schedule for children will be one dose and the youngest children, from six months to two years of age, will receive an inactivated injectable vaccine. Intranasal flu vaccine will be given to the rest of the children in the age group, from two to four years and 11 months.

The director general of Public Health, Elena Esteban is with the Minister of Health; deputy director of Care of the Health Service, Concha Zaforteza, and territorial director of Education in Menorca, Alexandra Marqués.