If there is something that the health crisis derived from the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us, it is the importance of vaccination. This preventive measure is the most effective way to protect individual and collective health , and it becomes essential in certain population groups that, due to their age or state of health, are in an even more fragile condition. The elderly, children, pregnant women or patients with chronic diseases require additional vaccines or even the administration of a greater number of doses that provide them with high protection against certain diseases. They are the so-called risk groups.
“Vaccination is a tool that gives our body a greater capacity for immune defense ,” says José María Martín Moreno, professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Valencia. And the thing is that vaccines, Dr. Martín Moreno points out, defend us against pathogens that cause infections. And he adds: “They help our immune system to be able to detect them better, control them and minimize their effect.” Precisely this is vital in the case of people who already suffer from underlying diseases, since vaccination avoids increasing the risk of possible complications derived from infections.
The health authorities recommend vaccination in a special way in both children and adults belonging to these risk groups. Above all, special emphasis is placed on those people who suffer from chronic diseases, such as HIV, heart disease or respiratory diseases, and also on those who live in social homes, hospitals or geriatric institutions. In the case of the elderly, the need is even greater , since aging is accompanied by immune deterioration. “Their immunological level is lower than that of a normal person, who would also benefit from this training of their immune system to respond to the challenge of the external invasion of microorganisms – warns Dr. Martín Moreno, and emphasizes -: They need special care to that these microorganisms do not take control of your body ”. For this reason, he advocates giving priority to vaccination in these groups.
In the same vein, Ángel Gil de Miguel, professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Rey Juan Carlos University, in Madrid, calls for reinforcing vaccination in risk groups and making its importance visible, since the response capacity of these subjects is less compared to infectious disease. For example, explains the expert, “when it comes to encapsulated bacteria, such as those responsible for pneumonia, it makes these people much more vulnerable and they do not respond adequately.”
But how can we ensure that these risk groups have the vaccines they need? The specialists who participated in the III Vaccine Forum, organized by Wecare-u with the support of Fundamed and GSK, gave a clear answer to this question: it is necessary to create a single vaccination registry focused on these population groups . It is about having a registry where health professionals can check the history, calculate coverage and ensure correct information for doctors and patients. Because, as Dr. Martín Moreno points out, “what is not evaluated or known cannot be improved”. And it is that the experts assure that, to this day, the real vaccination coverage of these groups is ignored, which prevents taking measures to improve them.
Pilar Arrazola, head of the Preventive Medicine Service of the Hospital 12 de Octubre, in Madrid, considers it necessary “to have precise denominators that allow adequate monitoring of patients at risk among all the professionals who treat these people.” Dr. Arrazola recalls that many of them are derived from other health specialists and it is necessary to be able to check which vaccines have been administered to them in order to make clinical decisions.
The approved recommendations are compiled in the document Vaccination in risk groups of all ages and in certain situations , which was published in July 2018. However, although Dr. Gil de Miguel assures that “the document prepared by the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities is excellent ”, he also claims“ greater dissemination of it and that professionals share the good practices and vaccination guides that already work in their centers ”.
Finally, the experts requested more and better training on vaccination in these risk groups, the involvement of managers for its implementation and the permanent update and dissemination of the recommendations so that they reach both professionals and the population of these most vulnerable sectors.
By Monica Gail.
