The Governing Council of the Community of Madrid has reported the acquisition of 100,000 units of the tetravalent meningitis vaccine to include it in your childhood vaccination calendar.
The vaccine is named after it protects against four types of meningococcal bacteria (A, C, W and Y) and will replace the current meningitis C vaccine that is given at 12 years of age, and that will be available from July 24.
Thus, people included in these population groups will be notified by telephone to go to their health center to get vaccinated, until they are administered to all those born after 2001, so that there is indirect protection at the community level to prevent cases of this disease in children and adults.
It's not about the Bexsero
Although there are currently 12 meningococcal serogroups described, the vast majority of cases of Invasive Meningococcal Disease (IMD) (95% of cases worldwide) are produced only by 6 serogroups: A, B, C, W, X and Y.
Many parents are confused to be a vaccine against meningitis, but it is not the Bexsero vaccine, which is the one that protects against meningitis B. This is the tetravalent one, which protects against types A, C, W and Y. Although the current incidence remains low, since 2014 there has been a slight relative increase in cases of serogroups C, W and Y.
La Bexsero is not funded in the Community of Madrid, although it will be funded in others such as Andalusia, the Canary Islands and Castilla y León.
Tetravalent in other communities
Castilla y León was the first to take the step, (the autonomous city of Melilla has been doing so since 2017) to strengthen protection against these four types of meningitis, and after them other communities such as the Valencian Community, the Canary Islands and Andalusia.
The problem is always the same, that at there is no single vaccination schedule For the whole territory, something that has been asked for a long time by the Spanish Association of Pediatrics, each autonomous community has its own calendar and authority to decide which vaccines to finance, which not and when.
In Babies and moreAndalucía will also finance the Bexsero and the tetravalent vaccines against meningitis: for when in all of Spain?But regardless of whether each community establishes its own date of inclusion (some before, others after), Health has announced that the tetravalent vaccine will be included in the official calendar gradually, so that it is included in all vaccination schedules throughout 2020.
Meningitis is a very contagious disease and although it is very rare, it appears suddenly and can cause death within a few hours. It consists of the inflammation of the meninges, which are membranes that cover the entire central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and the cerebrospinal fluid they contain.
According to the AEP, meningitis affects between 400 and 600 people every year, 10 percent with fatal consequences, and about 30% are left with neurological sequelae. The only way to prevent it is by administering the vaccine.
Vaccination in adolescents
The Ministry of Madrid has also announced that it will launch an active recruitment campaign for vaccination with tetravalent in young people of 17 and 18 years, since after childhood, the second highest peak of meningitis incidence occurs in the adolescence.
