The Importance of Vaccination for People Over 60 Years of Age: Insights from Infectious Disease Doctor Carlos Álvarez

Vaccination in people over 60 years of age It is a subject that is not talked about much and, moreover, that is unknown within society.

For this reasonCarlos Álvarez, infectious disease doctor spoke at Salud y Algo Más about the general panorama of vaccination in the population over 60 years of age and its importance, since there are several diseases that can be prevented or treated with these.

Doctor Álvarez began by explaining that vaccination in people over 60 years of age “is an important issue in prevention”.

Likewise, he mentioned that the Colombian and general health system, those of many countries of the world “they have concentrated on vaccinating children because it is more beneficial for humanity, children are protected and have a longer life expectancy, so vaccination is more useful in this population”.

And along the same lines, that “Vaccines do not end when you finish your childhood stage, but there must be, and there are vaccines for protection at different stages of lifein adolescents, adults and especially in people over 60 years of age because it is where the impact of vaccines benefits the most, in addition to children ”.

On the other hand, He referred to vaccines that should be applied in this population over 60 years of age where he highlighted that of influenza, pneumococcus and the reinforcement of COVID-19.

Regarding influenza, he mentioned that “The ideal is to do it after Easter, we must do it between April and May and if I apply it in April it will protect me until next year”.

In the case of Pneumococcus, he explained that this bacterium is a “that can cause pneumonia, is a vaccine that should be administered to the population” of people over 60 years of age.

Likewise, he said that “there are also COVID reinforcements, the health emergency is over but the virus has not gone away,” he pointed out.

Where can a person go to get those shots?

Doctor Carlos Álvarez explained that the person “you must go to your social security system to be redirected to the site to be vaccinated”.

And also, that “there are other vaccines that are not in the health plan and depending on the risk of each person they are given, the doctor should be asked about that issue.”

About COVID-19 vaccines

The infectologist was punctual on the subject and said that “In Colombia we are not very given to creating prevention strategieswhen we have to apply a vaccine to prevent ourselves from a disease, it seems that we do not give it importance, vaccines unfortunately have had bad propaganda in some circumstances ”.

Against indications for vaccines in this population over 60 years of age

Alvarez explained that “most vaccines have very mild side effectsthere will be people severely allergic to some component of the vaccine, but in general no, the vaccines are tolerable, they produce pain in the arm or general symptoms because the vaccines stimulate the defense system so that he wakes up and that sometimes can generate fever or symptoms of fatigue, but that shows that the defenses are being stimulated.

Finally, he mentioned thatthe great advance in vaccines has been thanks to COVID, which allowed a new way of making RNA vaccines” and also, that it is important that this population over 60 years of age get vaccinated.

Listen to the full interview below: