The flu campaign has brought mass vaccination back to the Basque Country. After having starred in the largest immunization campaign in its history, inoculating anticovid drugs, Osakidetza faces a dizzying end of the year with two intense months where you will redouble your efforts and he will do the rest again by injecting three sera into three population cohorts with different ages.
Monday, October 18 the flu campaign has already started which will involve more than half a million Basques. Osakidetza has arranged 651,333 doses to be administered gradually which could be expanded by 20% if necessary. But this vaccine can already be combined with the covid booster dose. And in particular, there are around 368,000 people over 70 years of age in the Basque Country, candidates for this third injection. As if this were not enough, in a few days a new puncture will be addressed for the 99,077 Basques who received the Janssen single-dose. In total, almost a million vaccines.
THREE-BAND OPERATING
“Right now work is being done on the Janssen operation to be able to start imminently but it is not easy because it adds to the flu and the booster dose and they are different populations “, clarifies the vice-counselor, José Luis Quintas. Health number two does not hide the difficulty of a device that is also addressing the third doses that have already been provided in nursing homes and now over 70 years who have been immunized for more than six months who can receive this vaccination in stereo along with the flu.
It must be remembered that those over 70 years of age have been the next chosen in the vaccination strategy to receive an extra shot against covid, after people institutionalized in residences and groups such as the severely immunosuppressed by transplantation, cancer patients, or kidney patients on hemodialysis.
What other age ranges will get the third dose is up in the air. “It is foreseeable that the booster dose can be lowered until the age of 60 or 65. But the next group would already be the general population and its effectiveness is still very much in question “, clarifies the deputy minister.
What is clear is that will be revaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna. From the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the AEP they explain that “as a precautionary principle, a separation of one week had been recommended. But now there is some data in the sense that the flu and covid vaccination, carried out simultaneously, they are safe and preserve the ability to protect both. “
REVACCINATION WITH JANSSEN
To make matters worse, Osakidetza must undertake the second injection of the 99,077 vaccinated Basques with the single dose of the pharmaceutical Johnson & Johnson, the less reliable solution. A study has revealed that Janssen’s antidote is the least protective against the coronavirus; 56% against symptomatic disease. It is, by far, the least effective product Of the four approved in Spain given that AstraZeneca meets 68% protection, Pfizer is around 78% and Moderna has reached the highest records in Spain, touching 90%.
Also here the doubt has been raised about mixing it with another serum since the combination has been a recurring debate. The scientific community has shown that mixing vaccines is not a problem. On giving messenger RNA to those who were inoculated with Janssen (as happened with AstraZeneca), there is a study promoted by the US administration that promotes the efficacy of combining drugs. “Sometimes they remain in the environment more topics than certainties. The heterologous strategy has been carried out all our lives in childhood vaccination since laboratories are mixed. In the flu itself, brands are combined and it has been shown that heterologous vaccination strengthens immunity” explains Quintas.
CHILD VACCINATION
As if this were not enough, in the medium term, The Basque Health Service will also have to face the immunization of almost 200,000 children under twelve years of age when the pertinent sanitary authorization is received. “We are hopeful. There are more and more favorable reports from health agencies for their immunization. This group is practically asymptomatic but it is a chain of transmission,” says Quintas.
In this sense, the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, also affirms that the communities “are prepared and waiting” to expand the vaccination process to children under 12 years of age, although she clarifies that this depends on the “mandatory authorization” of the European Medicines Agency. It should be remembered that this Friday, the US Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Pfizer vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years old. “The benefits of this option far outweigh the known risks,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
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