We started this year with news in the vaccination calendar in Spain, and just a month later and in the meantime announcement of news by the Ministries, it is the turn to health and vaccines. Ana Mato, the Minister of Health, Social Services and Equality, has proposed to unify the vaccination schedule throughout the National Health System.
Many times we have commented that the current situation, with many different vaccination schedules, according to Communities, goes against the criteria of equity, solidarity and rationality, in addition to showing a difference of criteria that creates confusion in parents.
The Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) has already shown its support for this commitment, which they claimed for a long time, and hopes that it will materialize effectively and not remain in wet paper as has happened with other measures previously announced.
The Vaccine Advisory Committee (CAV) of the AEP has made itself available to health authorities to collaborate as technical experts in the field in everything that is necessary for the implementation of a single vaccination schedule.
Recall that the vaccination schedule of the AEP Vaccine Advisory Committee, which is updated every year, establishes several levels of prioritization of vaccines, taking into account not only their effectiveness and safety, but also the burden of the disease in economic terms:
Systematic immunizations, those that the CAV considers that all children should receive universally and that, therefore, should be financed by the National Health System: the vaccine against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, polio , Haemophilus influenzae type b, meningococcus C, pneumococcus, measles, rubella, mumps, as well as that of the human papillomavirus.
The second level is the so-called recommended vaccines, that is, those that can be prioritized according to the resources for public funding. This section includes the rotavirus vaccine and universal varicella vaccination.
The third level is the recommended vaccines for risk groups, such as seasonal flu and hepatitis A.
We wait to meet how is the single vaccination calendar going to be launched in Spain, if they will follow these same criteria or others.
And we will see the reactions that this measure is generating in the population, a measure that personally, and in the absence of seeing the final preparation, I consider fair. The reactions in the medical field are being quite positive as we see, since the measure responds to an old claim.
