Fall is here and with it comes the flu shot. This year it will be double: one dose for the virus and one for Covid-19. Health Minister Fatima Matut explained yesterday that this year’s annual joint campaign will start on October 16 and run until January 31. Healthcare workers and the elderly will be the target groups for this immunization.
Minister Matute explained in Parliament yesterday: “The first priority of the district administration is the elderly, so they will first manage people living in residential buildings, people over 65 years old and health and social hygiene staff.”
Once this priority group is covered, it will be expanded to the rest of the recommended vaccines.Basically, which are People between 60 and 64 years oldas well as people under 60 with underlying medical conditions, and pregnant women.
The autonomous region government purchased 1.6 million doses of influenza vaccine for this event, an increase of 100,000 doses compared with 2022, with an investment of 19 million euros. Among them, 850,000 are adjuvanted quadrivalent influenza vaccines for people aged 65 or above; 750,000 quadrivalent influenza vaccines will be donated to other target groups of this event.
Regarding Covid-19, doses adapted to the new Ómicron variant (XBB1.5) will be administered in accordance with national and international recommendations. As always, the vaccines are distributed to all autonomous communities by the Ministry of Health and to different immunization points by the General Directorate of Public Health of Madrid.
The process will be carried out again in nursing homes, primary health care centers and Madrid community vaccination centres. Health personnel will do so at their workplace and, in the case of mutual members and social health personnel, at the location established at the Enfermera Isabel Zendal Public Hospital.
And the children
This year, children aged 6 months to 4 years are included in the influenza prevention and control campaign, for which 30,000 children are provided with intranasal anti-flu vaccine. In addition, from October 2, babies under six months old will be immunized against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for the first time to reduce the impact of bronchiolitis, which caused 3,600 hospital admissions and 350 hospital admissions last year. Intensive Care Unit. 50,000 doses were purchased for this purpose.