Zacatecas

ZACATECAS. “The universal vaccination program is a victim of its own success,” said Jorge Luis Saucedo Hernández, director of the State Vaccinology Center of the Zacatecas Health Secretariat (SSZ), after the entity closed this program with 81 percent in its coverage in children under one year of age.

He explained that it is a consequence of the fact that young parents are unaware of the diseases that vaccines prevent, such as poliomyelitis, tetanus, among others, which is why they neglect the vaccination schedule.

The specialist explained that since the beginning of the pandemic there has been a deterioration in the application of doses of the universal vaccination program, because the new generations have not been in contact with diseases that were once considered catastrophic.

“Current generations do not know of patients who had polio, who died from meningitis, among other diseases, so they think that they do not exist or are seen very little because vaccination exists,” he clarified.

The urgency of taking children to be immunized took a backseat; However, the coverage that was in place in past years “has kept these types of diseases at bay.”

Delay in coverage

Saucedo Hernández explained that in Zacatecas, during 2023, 81 percent coverage was achieved; however; The ideal is 90 percent or more, in children under one year old, a sector in which a greater number of biologicals are applied.

He reported that one of the main factors for having this percentage was the shortage between May and September of the BCG vaccine, which caused a delay in the inoculation schedules, and although they are applied at the wrong time, these children are no longer considered within the complete schemes.

He explained that children under one year of age are given a BCG and hepatitis B vaccine at birth, followed by the hexavalent vaccine at 2, 4 and 6 months, which protects against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, influenza, poliomyelitis and hepatitis B. , “it is a biological that protects against six diseases.”

Likewise, the vaccine that protects against rotavirus is applied, a disease that causes extreme diarrhea that can cause the death of the child, while every year the child is vaccinated against pneumococcal and the MMR vaccine (measles, rubella and mumps).

Death from diseases

The specialist highlighted that if vaccination decreases “we are going to have diseases that are rare,” as has already been recorded in other entities, and which were imported to Zacatecas during 2023.

He explained that in Mezquital, Durango, cases of whooping cough arose in children under five years of age, children of day laborers who came to work in Zacatecas and who unfortunately died here.

“If there were complete cases of vaccination, especially in this type of population that is migrant and that are imported cases, we can infer that probably in this state coverage with hexavalent vaccine is low, which is why infected children arrived in Zacatecas,” he pointed out.

2024-01-15 16:55:07
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