The coronavirus tail is elongated. Beyond the most immediate and notorious effects, the tentacles of Covid-19 have spread to all areas of our society, also reaching other diseases. Thus, the measures imposed to stop the advance of the pandemic have also made it possible to stop the advance, for example, of the flu, which in recent years has had a lower incidence, but which even now, with the end of the restrictions, should have a higher incidence. This is one of the reasons, as explained by the pediatrician of the Guadix hospital, Ana Leonés, a to include children between 6 and 59 months for the first time in Andalusia (5 years) in the flu vaccination campaign.
This pediatrician provides data that help better understand the reason for this decision, which will take effect on October 17. So, he explains himself, the one in between 5 to 35% of children can get the flu, but this figure rises to 50% in school-age children. Leonés also explains that the goal of this campaign is to achieve herd immunitythat the sector fixes to 60% of the population.
As of October 17, the Council will include this part of the population in its calendar, in order to break the chain of transmission, since, as Leonés explains, children of this age are “super contagious“, although in most cases they do not show obvious symptoms of the disease, which does not prevent them from passing it on.
Antonio Muñoz, professor emeritus in the area of Pediatrics at the University of Granada speaks in the same way, for whom there is multiple evidence to justify the inclusion of minors in this campaign, including the fact that influenza has a “high incidence” in children even if they “apparently do not become infected” and each year causes “significant morbidity”. This professor, in fact, states that “it is generally believed that influenza affects children with previous illnesses”, but points out that this is not the case, and that it can “affect even healthy children” and in fact they can easily transmit it to their immediate environment, be they other children or adults.
This was another of the reasons that led to the inclusion of minors along with the rest of the population at risk in the new vaccination campaign, in an attempt, not only, to get “individual protection”, but alsoas Leon explains, that of society as a whole.
Both experts continue to convey the message that vaccines are safe and that they are the best ways to protect society from major diseases, as the emergence of Covid-19 vaccines has made clear. For his part, Leones explains to the concerned parents that the procedure for vaccinating their children is exactly the same as for groups at risk, simply by making an appointment at their health center, although he adds that it is foreseen. vaccinesas for the coronavirus, to act on as many people as possible, although in Granada it has not yet been specified which spaces will be used for this function.
A WHO recommendation
This will be the first year that Andalusians under 5 will receive the flu shot, but in reality it is a measure that is more than a decade old. Indeed, as Muñoz points out, in 2011 The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that “all children over 6 months of age be vaccinated“.
With this provision, in fact, Andalusia will be one of the first autonomous communities, together with Galicia and Murcia, to include children in the vaccination campaign, adhering to an imposed provision in more than 70 countries, some with significant accumulated experience, such as the United Kingdom, Finland, the United States, Canada and Australia.
A dozen children die each year from the flu.
Scientific evidence indicates that one in two children contract the seasonal flu virus and so on a dozen healthy children die each year they wouldn’t do this if they weren’t vaccinated, according to data from Rosario Cáceres, vaccine coordinator of the Andalusian Council of Official Pharmacy Institutes.
In fact, during the past season, according to the sentinel influenza surveillance system of the Carlos III Institute, the 0-4 age group was still clearly the one with the highest incidence of cases of influenza in Spain e those with the highest hospitalization ratescomparable to those between 65 and 79 years old.
The inclusion of children from six months to 59 months in the Andalusian vaccination campaign “gains particular relevance this autumn later two seasons with important social distancing measures and the individual protection that has been followed in the population, in particular the use of masks “, explain sources of the Ministry of Health and Families.
