Madrid will vaccinate people over 65 against herpes zoster in outpatient clinics

• Prevention Is it necessary to advance the vaccine against meningitis A, C, W and Y?

The Community of Madrid has launched the calendar approved at the Interterritorial Council last February: the

calendar .

This means that the immunization of the entire population is planned from 0 years of age to the end of life, emphasizing the different stages.

Marta Molina Olivas, head of the prevention area of ​​the General Directorate of Public Health of the Community of Madrid, explains that "it is about covering all citizens with existing vaccines and adapting the different options to ensure that there is no reduction in vaccination rates.

Madrid presents as novelties that it already vaccinates

people over 65 and 80 years of age in health centers against

"We have taken an important step to cover this segment of the population after having started vaccination in hospitals at the beginning of the year," explains Molina.

Thus, this vaccine has been received by all patients over 18 years of age who met the following conditions: recipient of a hematopoietic or solid organ stem cell transplant, treatment with anti-JAK drugs, HIV, malignant blood diseases and solid tumors receiving chemotherapy .

Now,

of "people 65 years of age (in 2022, cohort born in 1957) is given way and people 80 years of age (in 2022, cohort born in 1942) will be recruited and vaccinated." The vaccination start date will be notified to these age groups throughout the current year. Depending on the availability of doses, vaccination will be progressively expanded to other age cohorts."

Other novelties in the vaccination calendar: meningococcus at 12 years

The 2022 calendar in the Community of Madrid includes news in the pediatric 'zone'.

From now on, it will include one of the requests that pediatricians have been demanding for some time: the change introduced in July 2019 in which the meningococcal C vaccine was replaced by the meningococcal serotype A vaccine is consolidated, C, W and Y (Men ACWY) at 12 years of age.

Molina explains that "it is a pre-

and that it affects the entire national territory because it was observed that the epidemiology of the causes of meningitis in adolescents was changing". For this reason, he adds that these two years have actively recruited the population born between 2001 and July 2007. " The population of this age group that has not yet received this vaccine can go to their health center to have it administered," insists Molina.

On the other hand, children born on or after July 1, 2016 will receive, at 6 years of age, the

tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, polio (DTPa-IPV) vaccine instead of low-load dTpa .

In this way they follow the recommendations of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) and Molina justifies it "it is about adapting vaccination to the current need for protection, we have adjusted immunization every six years, since at this age they do not require new doses vaccine against poliomyelitis.

In addition, Molina points out that "we are going to review the vaccination status of all the refugees from Ukraine who arrive and we will update their vaccination schedule if necessary."

In this sense, following the recommendations of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), they will pay special attention to immunization against Covid, as well as against

.

From the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP), Luis Blesa, its president, expressed in a statement that "vaccination is a clear example of one of the preventive activities with the greatest impact on the health of the population at all levels."

Blesa emphasizes the role of the pediatrician "as promoter of this

that has one of the best cost-effective ratios of all preventive measures in the history of Medicine. Pediatricians and pediatric nurses put all our effort and dedication in promoting the best vaccination for children and adolescents and we consider 'vaccines' to be our own territory and an outstanding part of our daily work, especially in Primary Care centres".

In this sense, the president of the AEP recalls the demand of pediatricians to promote a single childhood vaccination schedule and maximums throughout the country: "There is not enough justification, neither epidemiological nor of another type, for the differences existing in the calendars of some autonomous communities with others, which generate unnecessary confusion in the population".

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