This year, vaccination is more important than ever, as it will be key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it will also be more difficult, as we are faced with new vaccines that pose certain challenges.
In the first place, it is not yet known with certainty when safe and effective vaccines will be authorized in our country or when they will finally be able to be administered among the population. In addition, it will depend on the vaccines that we finally have, the population groups that we can vaccinate with each one of them. “If in the clinical trial of a vaccine they have not put any child, it does not have the same evidence as another vaccine in whose clinical trial they have considered this type of population,” explains José Martínez Olmos, former Secretary General of Health. Depending on the type of vaccine, it may be used in the segment of the population in which it gives good results.
Another issue is logistics and distribution. Storing vaccines at extreme temperatures can be challenging, although all vaccines will not be the same and will not need to be stored in the same cold.
The importance of vaccination
But, once all these steps have been overcome, the key for a vaccine to be effective will be to achieve good vaccine coverage. And, to achieve this, you need the trust of citizens and good communication.
The IV Public Health Forum will deal with all this: ‘Towards the improvement of vaccination in adults in times of pandemic’, an event organized in collaboration by Fundamed and GSK Spain. It will be held on December 16, at 4:00 p.m., and it will shed some light on this uncertainty that COVID-19 has brought.
You can follow the meeting through this link.
If last year, at the III Public Health Forum, a group of 10 vaccination specialists from different autonomous communities focused on vaccination in risk groups, this year the IV Forum will focus on adults.
Ángel Gil, Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, will open the meeting in which different Health experts will participate. José Javier Castrodeza, former secretary general of the Ministry of Health, will emphasize the importance of adults being vaccinated in the COVID-19 era and then give way to David Cantarero, head of the R&D Group in Health Economics of the Institute de Investigación Sanitaria (IDIVAL) Valdecilla, who will speak about the sustainability of vaccination and its economic impact.
For her part, María Fernández-Prada, specialist practitioner of the Preventive Medicine and Public Health Area and member of the Spanish Association of Vaccination (AEV), will explain the benefits of vaccination and the diseases that can be prevented thanks to vaccines from the point of view of a preventivist. Finally, Manuel Méndez Díaz, doctor of health administration in health and vaccine programs of the Department of Public Health of the Government of Aragon, will complement the presentation by Fernández-Prada and will do so from the perspective of Public Health.
