Logroño (EFE) – The flu vaccination rate in La Rioja is 10 percentage points higher than the Covid-19 vaccination rate, due to a decrease in coronavirus infections and pandemic fatigue, which prevents people from getting vaccinated .
Eva Martínez, public health director of the Government of La Rioja, presented the data in detail during an information session to evaluate the combined influenza and Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which started in the first week of October , is still actively in progress.
Among people aged over 80, 79% have received a flu vaccine (17,585 people) and 73% have received a COVID-19 vaccine (16,181 people); in the 70 to 79 age group, the figures are 73% respectively (21,212) and 62% (18,031); among 60 to 69-year-olds, he noted, the proportion drops to 50-year-olds (19,984 people) and 40% (16,138 people).
Children’s vaccinations
As a novel activity, this activity includes the systematic vaccination of infants over 6 months of age and children under 5 years of age with influenza vaccination, as this age group has a high incidence of influenza and the risk of co-morbidities.
In this age group, 42% of the population has been vaccinated, a total of 4,813 minors, who can also be vaccinated without an appointment on three days, Saturday, January 13, 20 and 27.
This season, immunization against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the leading cause of bronchiolitis in children, is also on the agenda.
He pointed out that this is not a vaccine, but an antibody that provides immediate immunity that lasts for 6 months and covers the entire RSV cycle activity.
The measure targets children born from April 1, 2023, and continues until March 31, 2024, with immunization rates reaching 95% so far.
In this sense, he stressed that there has been a decrease in the number of hospitalizations for bronchiolitis in children, but he did not specify specific data, as the balance has yet to be finalized by a research group together with other autonomous regions to verify the effectiveness of this immunization.