“Does my child get the corresponding dose of the Bexsero vaccine for free this year?” “No. Only for children born in November and December 2022,” replies one of the pediatric nurses at the HM polyclinic in Manoteras, north of the city.
This question is being one of the most frequently asked questions in doctors’ and nurses’ offices by parents who had children last year. Criticism is also growing in various WhatsApp groups of families with young children.
And it is that as of this year it will be free in the Community of Madrid -and in the rest of Spain- one of the vaccines that has generated the most controversy in recent years: that of meningococcus B. Well, the department directed by Enrique Ruiz Escudero will finance it for children born on or after November 1, 2022. “And why not those born on October 31 of that same year?” asks the nurse.
Each dose costs 106.15 euros
With data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), this means that the 43,460 boys and girls born in the Community of Madrid between January and October of last year will have to finance said vaccine from their families if they want to administer it. And it’s not a joke. There are three doses and each one of them costs 106.15 euros at the pharmacy. In other words, 318.45 euros supposes completing the complete guideline.
In reality, many of those 43,460 babies born in the first 10 months of 2022 already have two doses injected, which in reality would be missing the last one, which is administered at 15 months.
“We should be able to put it on for free to all children depending on the guidelines they have pending,” insists the nurse.
Ministry’s position
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Community of Madrid explains that “the inclusion of the vaccine against Meningococcus B in the vaccination schedule throughout life has been approved at the national level on November 17, 2022, in regimen of 3 doses at 2, 4 and 12 months of age starting in this year 2023”. And he continues: “When a new indication or a new vaccine is introduced into the systematic vaccination schedule, it is necessary to define a start date and a target population from which the vaccine is financed.”
The same sources point out, “in the Community of Madrid, MenB has been defined as those born on November 1, 2022, so that from January 1, 2023 all boys and girls who come to receive the first dose in the 2-month check-up and thus be able to subsequently complete the indicated regimen”.
In this sense, the Central Government Public Health Commission approved on November 17 of last year the common vaccination schedule throughout life for the year 2023, as well as the specific one for risk groups, including the recommendation to vaccinate in a systematic way to the child population against invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) by serogroup B with the 4CMenB vaccine, “due to the high severity and sequelae of this disease, as well as the fairness of the measurement in the population”.
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