The Ministry of Health is finalizing the flu vaccination campaign, which will be brought forward to the end of September, despite the fact that the original plan was to start in October. October.
The rise in covid cases in recent weeks, which has been noticeable in all communities, has led the Ministry of Health and the autonomies to bring forward the immunisation of risk groups at the end of this month of September, as agreed last Tuesday at the meeting of the Public Health Commission by regional officials.
Like last year, there will be the option of a mixed vaccination, offering vaccination against the flu and against the coronavirus during the same visit, since this achieves higher rates of vaccine coverage. The campaign will start with risk groups beginning with nursing homes, according to health sources, coinciding with school vaccinations against flu, which will take place at the end of September.
The joint vaccination campaign against flu and covid-19 will be aimed at certain target groups such as those over 60 years of age, people at risk, pregnant women and health and social health personnel .
The vaccines used will “preferably” be those adapted to the new variants. In Europe, only Pfizer’s, known as Comirnaty Ómicron XBB.1.5, already has the support of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Commission, although there are other candidates.
This will be the third campaign that both are administered together, and that coincides with a period in which there have been weeks of slight increase in SarS-CoV-2, which is now is stabilizing: the rate is around 130 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Primary Care and 3 cases requiring hospitalisation.
In the Region of Murcia, the incidence rate of covid in the last week has increased by 32% compared to the previous week, according to the report from the Epidemiology Service of the Ministry of Health published Wednesday. The 7-day accumulated incidence stands at 71.03 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the 53.6 recorded in the previous report.
The Ministry of Health in Murcia expects to receive some 216,000 doses of the covid vaccine by the end of October, although it insists that it will be at the end of September when the new vaccination campaign will get underway.
