Florence Cunzolo
03/03/2020 - 10:01
- Clarín.com
- Good Life
18 months after being postponed indefinitely, the 11-year dose of the quadrivalent meningitis vaccine is reapplied free of charge in public health centers throughout the country. Thus, girls and boys who have reached that age as of 2017 and do not have that dose are already in a position to catch up with the National Vaccination Calendar.
The Minister of Health Ginés González García announced that in recent weeks they worked on the distribution of 1.2 million doses of the meningococcal conjugate vaccine, which are available as of this week.
In January 2017, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to implement the meningitis conjugate vaccine (which protects against serogroups A, C, W, Y) in infants and adolescents. He entered the schedule in a two-dose schedule and a booster at 3, 5 and 15 months of life, and a single dose at 11 years, within the framework of a combined strategy : vaccinating adolescents, who are the ones who most They carry the bacteria in their noses and throats, not only they are protected, but it also reduces the transmission to babies, the most vulnerable and most at risk group against meningococcus, a bacterium that causes serious diseases, such as meningitis (inflammation of the membrane that covers the brain) and sepsis (generalized infection).
But in August 2018, complaints from provinces such as Santa Fe, Misiones and Chaco that they did not receive the necessary doses to guarantee coverage, resulted in the announcement, by the then Minister of Health Adolfo Rubinstein, of the postponement for an indefinite period. of the dose for teenagers. From the health portfolio adduced problems in the provision , an argument that was rejected by the pharmaceutical company that GSK, which makes the vaccine. On several occasions, the provinces also claimed that the amounts delivered were not enough to cover the necessary doses for the infant population.
In January, the Government began the operation to release 12.4 million vaccines - among which there were anti-meningococcal drugs - that were withheld at the Ezeiza airport, by including an article in the Health Emergency Law that exempted them from paying customs fees .
González García has now announced the regularization of the 11-year dose, which is applied free of charge in hospitals and public vaccinations in the country to boys and girls who have reached that age since 2017. There is no need to submit a medical order . "School admission," he said, "is an opportunity to control whether vaccines are up to date and complete vaccination schedules."
Calendar per day
During the school life, there are two great moments marked by vaccines. The admission, at 5-6 years, when the second booster of the OPV vaccine against polio, the second dose of the viral triple (which protects against measles, rubella and mumps) and a dose of the triple bacterial cell ( diphtheria, tetanus and convulsa cough). The next instance is at age 11, at which age it is appropriate to apply the two doses of the HPV vaccine, the antimeningococcal, the triple bacterial acellular, and start or complete the three-dose schedule for hepatitis B.
The threat of measles
Meanwhile, adolescents who have not received two doses of triple viral after one year of life should start or complete the 2 dose schedule. Reviewing the coverage of this vaccine is key at this time, in which the country faces the worst measles outbreak since 2000, the year in which the endemic circulation of the virus was eliminated. Since then and for almost 20 years there had been just over 40 cases, while the ongoing outbreak started at the end of August in the Province and City of Buenos Aires already accumulates 156 cases and one deceased person (the last death from measles in the country had been in 1998).
To try to stop the outbreak, vaccination operations are carried out in the affected municipalities and the recommendations were extended, such as vaccinating with an extra dose after 6 months of life in the regions where the virus circulates and vaccinating all people traveling from the provinces to Buenos Aires.
In this regard, the Secretary of Access to Health Carla Vizzotti appealed yesterday at a press conference to individual responsibility and indicated that the beginning of classes should be taken as “ an opportunity to complete the vaccination schedules of children and achieve immunity that it will protect not only people who get vaccinated, but also those who, for different health reasons, cannot receive immunization and are susceptible to illness. ”
Measles has no specific treatment and can cause serious complications: 1 in 10 infected people develop deafness, 1 in 20 pneumonia, 1 in 1,000 meningoencephalitis and between 1 and 2 in 1,000 die. The virus is very transmissible (9 out of 10 people who come into contact with it can get sick), so it is necessary to have vaccination coverage in excess of 95% to reduce the number of people susceptible to illness.
