In Spain, 92.6% of citizens over 12 years of age have received the full vaccination schedule. Now coverage continues with additional booster doses. In particular, a fourth inoculation for people over 60 years of age and a vulnerable population that has stagnant months y it has barely reached half of the target population (58.8% ≥60 years). However, the Government has decided to buy more than 55 million covid vaccines as a souvenir dose – after destroying 14 million due to expiration, as THE OBJECTIVE already announced – that it will receive throughout this year “to deal with the pandemic” and “especially, the worst possible scenario.”
These are data provided to this newspaper by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products through a request for information through the Transparency Portal. In this way, with the pandemic giving its last blows and with the lowest cumulative incidence since the health crisis began (22.46 in the last seven days), the Ministry of Health, “in compliance with a common strategy together with the rest of the members of the European Union”, has been done with 55,643,380 of coronavirus vaccines in order to “comply with the acquisition agreements signed with the companies.”
For the purchase of these injections have been reserved 1,116 million of the funds of the Ministryas is clear from the State’s general budgets 2023. In 2021 and 2022, in the midst of vaccination campaigns, the amount allocated was barely higher than this year: 1,452 million y 1,130 millionrespectively.
By companies, according to the document to which this medium has had access and in accordance with said concerts, Spain must receive the following number of vaccines against covid-19 in 2023: Pfizer-Biontech: 49.347.875 dosis, Modern: 2,747,505 doses y Sanofi: 348,000 doses. Total, 52.443.380 of injections to which must be added three million more Hipra.
As this newspaper reported, the Ministry of Health has purchased 3,200,000 of the Spanish Hipra vaccine which is still in revision by the committee for medicinal products for human use of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In this way, in total, Carolina Darias’ portfolio has acquired 55.643.380 of vaccines by 2023.
This is how vaccination progresses in Spain
The data shows that the risk posed by covid today is not the same as it was a year ago. According to consolidated figures from the latest report from the Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencieswith data collected up to 02/03/2023, in the last seven days there have been diagnosed 2,823 cases. In addition, the accumulated incidence is 22.46 per 100,000 inhabitants over 60 years of age and the percentage of ICU beds occupied with covid is 1.70% (2,056 patients). On the other hand, the number of new deaths in the last week it has been 76 people.
Faced with this improving situation, the danger of covid is no longer perceived in the same way and enthusiasm for vaccines has waned. If Spain became a benchmark for vaccination against the coronavirus by registering the first million immunized in record timeCurrently, the second booster dose (the fourth injection for the majority) has not taken off with force and only 7,418,392 people would be vaccinated (58.8%) five months after the campaign began with these adapted injections (Pfizer and Moderna).
The vaccination campaign with a second injection of memory started last september 26. However, the Ministry of Health published the first data on October 21, four weeks later. These reflect that 1.6 million people over 60 received it that first month. Compared to the first booster dose (the third vaccine), 4.5 million people would have received it in the same period. The number of people over 60 years of age with it inoculated at this time is eleven and a half million, 90.1% of the target population.
In this sense, the experts consulted agree that, more than two years after the majority received at least two doses of the vaccine -some even three or have been infected with the virus-, the protection is very strong, Therefore, in certain populations it does not make sense to continue with booster doses at this time. “The studies published in December show that a fourth dose is not capable of increasing or lengthening the immune response that had already been generated with the third dose,” says the doctor. Raquel Blasco, which adds that “the time to get vaccinated should coincide with situations in which community transmission is high and the risk of contagion is very high.” “The evidence suggests that the fourth dose will be mainly to give greater protection to older and more vulnerable people with immune systems,” concludes the expert.
