Rafael Álvarez Cordero- Childhood vaccination is going well

Childhood vaccination is going well.

One of the great advances in health around the world are childhood vaccination campaigns, which have significantly reduced morbidity and mortality; In previous six-year terms, Mexico received the Vaccination Award in Latin America awarded by the Pan American Sanitary Office. There are those who think that, as then, vaccination is going well today, but that is one of the most pernicious statements that are unsubstantiated and have consequences.

For months now, the World Health Organization pointed out a 15-year decline in vaccination coverage, which has contributed to the appearance of numerous measles outbreaks in different parts of the world.

Vaccines are one of the health actions that offer the best return on investment, because they anticipate the disease; Children's vaccination campaigns have been instituted in all countries, which aim to prevent the most common diseases in childhood. Mexico has the National Vaccination Scheme for Children and Adolescents, which includes vaccines such as hepatitis B, rotavirus, influenza, pentavalent, conjugated pneumococcus, among others. The ideal vaccination schedule includes these vaccines and others such as chickenpox, hepatitis A, meningococcus, additional doses of pneumococcus, papillomavirus and more. The establishment of the Universal Vaccination Card was a great advance in health policies in Mexico, but, unfortunately, due to multiple reasons, the vaccination data is not encouraging. More than half of the minors do not complete a complete schedule by the time they are one year old and almost 73% have not completed the second dose. This is stated by the National Continuous Health and Nutrition Survey, which provides very worrying data. “Coverage in Mexico began to decline more than 10 years ago, but the problem has worsened in the last five,” he highlights. Mauricio Rodriguez, an expert in infectious diseases and with a long history in viral vaccine research. But now the problem has worsened, because the devastation caused by the hurricane Otis In a large part of Guerrero, it endangers hundreds of thousands of children who do not have water, electricity, food, medicine and, of course, not enough vaccines; And if we add to that the possibility of outbreaks of infectious diseases due to lack of access to clean water, the outlook is very serious. The United Nations Fund has reported that more than 290,000 boys and girls could be affected by this hurricane. And we will have to think - to add insult to injury - to the central offices of the Ministry of Health, which were installed by presidential order in the port of Acapulco, and are now damaged and will surely work poorly.