New Child Immunization Calendar in Valencia Saves Families Money on Meningitis B Vaccine

“The difference is going to be noticed,” admits Ignacio who He has just been the father of a girl with his partner Ivana. In their case, they already have a child born in 2017 and at the time they did they made the decision to pay the Bexsero out of pocket to protect your child from this type of meningitis, aware that it is a infection that can be life-threatening especially in younger children. “We put our son’s health before money but also we could afford it but other families surely have not been able to. They should have posted it earlier because It shouldn’t be a privilege.”assures Ignacio to this newspaper.

In his case they were more than 300 euros paid at the pharmacy since the vaccination schedule is three doses: one at two months, another at 4 and a last dose at twelve months, money that in your case will be saved. Like them and according to figures from the Ministry of Health, a 60% of Valencian families who had a child last year decided to spend that money.

Those of December, stay out

The measure is already on the calendar but It will only benefit children born since January 2023, not to those born in 2022. To babies born in December, and who have started to get vaccinated this February, the measure does not benefit them either.

It is what has happened to Esther, mother of a little girl who was to have been born at the end of January “but she was in a hurry and arrived on December 30.” Since Esther was due in January, it was clear to her that she was going to benefit from the measure, but since the little girl “was born on December 30, I have to pay for all the doses.” Of course, they are going to advance it two months to go along with the current vaccine schedule.

Five cases of meningitis, one fatal

In addition, children also receive protection against another serogroup other than the meningococcal bacterium, C at four and twelve months. It is not until the age of twelve when children are protected against more types of meningitis with the quadrivalent vaccine against type A, C, W and Y meningitis, something that pediatricians ask to change because these serogroups (W and Y) are now the most worrying.

In fact, of the five recorded cases of meningitis this year (plus one probable), two have been caused by types Y and W of meningococcus and another by “other serogroups”. Of those five cases, a four-year-old boy died. And it is that, according to the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), the 10% of people who get meningococcal meningitis die and meningitis is the first cause of death due to infection in children and adolescents. The groups at greatest risk are children under 5 years of age and young people between 15 and 24 years of age. TOAlthough it is not fatal, this inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord can also cause serious complications and sequelae.

Protect against W and Y earlier

These five cases until the end of April is a figure similar to the records of other years since In the Valencian Community the phenomenon of rising cases is not being registered which is taking place in the rest of Spain. According to the SEN, although in Spain the number of cases of meningitis is not particularly high, since 2014 there has been “an upward trend, mainly due to a increase in cases of meningococcal meningitis due to serogroups W and Y”.

Precisely for this reason, the four scientific societies of Pediatrics of the Valencian Community They have asked the Ministry of Health to advance this vaccination with the four types of serogroups (the quadrivalent one that has been given to 12-year-old adolescents since 2020) at 12 months. “The intention to vaccinate adolescents was also protect infants” since adolescents are a reservoir for the meningococcus bacteria, although they are also the second group in volume of cases, but for this, “vaccination coverage should be above 80% and the coverage percentages that we expected,” explains the pediatrician and vaccine researcher, Maria Garces-Sanchez, hence the change is requested to protect the little ones before.