Pediatricians urge parents to vaccinate children under 5 years of age against influenza

Primary care pediatricians This Friday they did Urging parents to vaccinate their children under 5 years of age against influenza, a measure with which they will protect their health, as well as the health of their family members, but which last year covered only 36% of this population.

“This year we must change this situation” The Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatricians (AEPap) said in a note that it attributed the low incidence to the “mistake” that the flu vaccine is intended exclusively for other groups of the population, such as the elderly.

According to the Ministry of Health, the first childhood immunization campaign against influenza, which spread last year in all populated areas, covered 36.1% of children under 5 years of age.

Although with differences between communities, these are Galicia (55.8%); Murcia (51.1%), Andalusia (45.8%), which started a year earlier, and Castile and Leon (45%), which received better coverage. In contrast, the lowest rates were in Catalonia (24.4%), the Balearic Islands (19.9%) and the Basque Country (18.4%).

As AEPap reminds, influenza is more serious in terms of mortality in older people, but young children are hospitalized in the same proportion as people over 60 years of age.

It is also more serious in children or adults at risk, but two out of three hospitalized minors had no risk factors.

That’s why, “It’s not just babies who are vaccinated to protect others and prevent them from acting as transmitters,” But vaccination primarily protects minors themselves, since “even boys and girls without risk factors can develop serious conditions that require hospitalization.”

Just yesterday, the Carlos III Institute of Health published a study that showed how the first flu vaccination campaign targeting children aged 6 months to 5 years, launched last fall in Spain, prevented 70% of infections and 77% of hospitalizations in this group population.

Two preparations are available: an intranasal vaccine, which, although more convenient, has a limitation: it is not approved for children under two years of age, so it “ideal» for children from 2 to 5 years old; and intramuscular, which is given by injection, is the only one indicated from six months to two years.

None of these are available for children under six months of age, so to protect children of this age from risk, it is necessary vaccinate cohabitants and take basic hygiene measuresfor example, frequent hand washing by adults.