“Challenges and Opportunities in Vaccination: Examining Spain’s Health System and Global Trends”

The pandemic has revealed the weaknesses and strengths of the health system in Spain. Among the weaknesses, the country does not have a system that stores all the day-to-day data on vaccination coverage. In fact, today the data is collected twice a year only.

“It takes us months to know what the vaccination coverage is“, affirms the general deputy director of Promotion, Prevention and Quality of the Public Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health, Carmen Olmedo, during the conference Achievements and opportunities of vaccination in Spain, organized by Farmaindustria and the Spanish Association of Vaccinology. “No We have a vaccine information system.

To this day, andhe Ministry of Health is preparing this “quality information system” under the name of Sibain, however it will be released in two years. Among the characteristics that it must contain is a unique identifier that unites all the systems of the different communities in Spain and promotes those regional registries that are more outdated. In addition, it must include information on all sera and immunizations in the population.

At the time when the Coronavirus appeared, the ministry considered the creation of a national registry of vaccines against this virus to see and analyze how the vaccination campaign was being carried out and thus have more data when making decisions. However, as the experts explain, sufficient resources have not been provided for the rest of the serums.

One of the consequences is that since they do not have specific data, the authorities can only make an approximation. Thus, the experts ask for better sources of information on the cases to carry out the reports. “This has sometimes been relegated to second place,” emphasizes the epidemiologist from the National Epidemiology Center, Susana Monge.

Worrying levels of vaccination

A few days ago Unicef ​​published the report State of the World’s Children. The organization indicated that between 2019 and 2021 67 million children around the world were left unvaccinated. Two thirds of those affected did not receive a single dose, especially in Nigeria, Burma and the Philippines. In addition, Latin America is the region that worries the authorities the most since almost two million babies lack basic vaccines.

Of the 55 countries that have participated in the document, 52 have decreased confidence in the sera. In fact, as regards Spain has decreased eight percentage points from around 89% to 88%. The main cause is the doubts regarding the Covid vaccine, which has spread to the rest of the serums. “The pandemic has caused us to go back to 2003 figures,” stresses the president of the Spanish Vaccinology Association, Jaime Jesús Pérez. Nevertheless, Vaccines prevent 4.4 million deaths a year. In fact, in 2030 5.8 million will be avoided, that is, 1.4% more.

One of the fundamental aspects in the development of serums over time has been Spain’s entry into the European vaccine networks. This has made it possible to achieve research achievements. However, “the big global funders are not the big organizations,” say the experts. The connection between the various laboratories has also been one of the points that has helped along the way.