Flu vaccination faces explicit refusal from the parents of nearly 4,000 children Vaccination coverage in schools stood at 50% during the last campaign in the Region of Murcia, representing a slight increase compared with previous years. Murcia The latest flu vaccination campaign…
Flu vaccination faces explicit refusal from the parents of nearly 4,000 children
Vaccination coverage in schools stood at 50% during the last campaign in the Region of Murcia, representing a slight increase compared with previous years.
Murcia
The latest flu vaccination campaign in schools across the Region of Murcia, aimed at children aged between 2 and 9, closed with overall coverage of 50.24%, representing a modest increase of 2.86 percentage points compared with the previous year. This is a limited rise, but it coincides with the inclusion of children aged 6 to 9 in the vaccination program, the Directorate-General of Public Health highlights in its assessment of the campaign, published this week. The analysis focuses on vaccinations administered in schools, so doses given to this population at health centers, outside the school system, still need to be added.
In any case, flu vaccination coverage figures contrast with those recorded for the other vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule. More than 90% of children in the Region are vaccinated against measles, chickenpox, or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Jaime Pérez, head of the Prevention and Health Promotion Service at the Regional Health Ministry, points out that neither the Region nor Spain differs from other countries in the surrounding area in this respect: “The fact that flu is a common illness leads us to underestimate it. There may be more deaths from flu than from meningitis, but in the former case most children do not experience problems, whereas in the latter, we are talking about a very serious disease.”
Before the flu vaccination campaign begins, families receive a document authorizing their children to be vaccinated at school. During the latest season, 45,444 letters (44.7% of all those sent) were not returned, meaning those children did not receive their dose. In some cases, this may have been due to a lack of interest or simple oversight. However, the parents of 3,923 schoolchildren (7% of the total) explicitly refused vaccination. This represents a clear increase compared with the previous season, when the parents of 2,525 students explicitly declined.
52,414
The number of doses administered to children aged 2 to 9 at schools in the Region of Murcia.
The Health Ministry does not interpret this figure negatively, as it wants more families to make their choice explicit rather than simply failing to return the authorization form. However, it shows that a significant proportion of parents openly reject the vaccine, rather than simply displaying a lack of interest because they perceive flu as relatively unimportant.
The Regional Health Ministry is working to gradually improve vaccination coverage. In fact, among children aged 2 to 5, coverage has already reached 60%, when doses administered at school and those given through primary care are combined. But given that the goal of matching the response achieved by other childhood vaccines still appears a long way off, the question remains as to whether the current flu vaccination campaign for children is effective from a public health perspective.
“The fact that it is a common illness that almost all of us have had leads us to underestimate it,” reflects Jaime Pérez.
Health Ministry experts are attempting to answer this question through observational studies and, so far, the initial answer is yes. “Hospitalizations among vaccinated children have fallen by 52%,” Jaime Pérez reports. However, this figure is provisional and has not yet been published. The head of the Prevention and Health Promotion Service also points to a benefit for unvaccinated children, as the circulation of the virus is reduced. “If 50% of the children in a classroom are vaccinated, those who are not vaccinated are also protected,” he explains. This statement is still preliminary and awaits the results of a study being conducted in collaboration with the National Center for Epidemiology. It is estimated that nearly 2,500 cases of flu were prevented last winter among children aged 5 to 9 in the Region.
More people protected
Including both children and adults, the Health Ministry administered nearly 366,000 flu vaccine doses during the latest campaign in the Region of Murcia, a 20% increase compared with the previous season. The main factor behind this record figure was the extension of flu vaccination to children up to age 9. There was also a slight improvement in coverage among people over 65, healthcare workers, and pregnant women. According to a still-provisional assessment, this breaks with the trend of previous years, which had been marked by declining vaccination rates.
45,444
The number of families who did not return the authorization forms for their children’s vaccination.
One of the challenges is improving coverage among the youngest children (aged 6 to 23 months), which stands at 37.5%. This age group is precisely the most vulnerable to the effects of flu: children under 2 account for half of all flu-related hospital admissions among those under 15 and have more than twice the risk of developing complications.
Initial studies point to a 52% reduction in hospitalizations among vaccinated schoolchildren.
Flu vaccination cannot be administered to babies until they reach six months of age, but during the preceding period they can be protected if their mother was vaccinated during pregnancy. The Health Ministry has focused on this group, achieving an increase of nearly 20 percentage points in coverage. As a result, close to 55% of pregnant women were vaccinated during the latest season.
