The Community of Madrid will begin this Monday the traditional joint vaccination campaign against flu and the third booster dose against Covid-19 in nursing homes, starting with those over 65 years of age and health and social health personnel.
It will gradually be expanded to the group of 60 to 64 years old, people under 60 years of age with underlying pathology or pregnant women. In general, the flu campaign is aimed at people over 60 years of age and people in risk groups. This last group includes chronically ill people, pregnant women, health professionals, social health workers, caregivers and essential services personnel, among others. As a novelty on this occasion, the campaign will also reach children between 6 months and 59 months (4 years and 11 months of age) for the first time. For this, there are 30,000 intranasal children’s antiflu doses.
As on other occasions, it will be carried out in local health centers and clinics of the Community of Madrid, health centers of the City Council, the Vaccination Center of the Community of Madrid and other authorized vaccination points. In the case of the elderly, it can also be carried out in nursing homes. The regional government has acquired 1.6 million doses of flu vaccine, with an investment of 18.9 million euros, an amount that would cover the needs of the population to which it is directed, taking into account that there are 100,000 more of those administered in the previous campaign, when it reached 1.4 million citizens in the region.
Specifically, they are divided into 850,000 adjuvanted quadrivalent influenza vaccines, intended for those aged 65 or over, and another 750,000 quadrivalent flu vaccines for the rest of the people targeted by the campaign. According to data from the latest epidemiological bulletin of the Ministry of Health, 41,572 cases of flu have been recorded so far this year, compared to the 12,813 registered in the same period of 2022. In the last week, from October 2 to 8 , the number of flu cases reported through the EDO Surveillance System (Notifiable Diseases) was 201 cases, 23 less compared to the previous week. Also coinciding with the start of this flu vaccination campaign, the third booster dose against Covid-19 will also begin to be administered for risk groups, that is, for those over 60 years of age, chronically ill people and social-health personnel. In this case, the latest official data from the Ministry of Health places the 14-day cumulative incidence per 100,000 inhabitants in the population over 60 years of age at 242.7, with 1,799 cases in this population group between 2 and 8 October.
Immunization will be carried out in local health centers and clinics, nursing homes, City Hall health centers, the Vaccination Center of the Community of Madrid and other authorized vaccination points. In the specific case of social-health personnel (seniors’ homes and dependency centers) and for mutual benefit members, an exclusive point for Covid will also be enabled at the Zendal Hospital. Regarding protection against Covid-19, doses adapted to the new Ómicron variants (XBB1.5) will be administered, following national and international recommendations. These, as on previous occasions, are assigned by the Ministry of Health to all the autonomous communities and, from the General Directorate of Public Health, they will be distributed to the different immunization points.
2023-10-15 12:13:21
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