2024-03-26 20:10:23
The historic dengue outbreak that is being experienced in a nightmarish way in different areas of the country should lead to a reconfiguration of the tools used to face the epidemiological crisisand the Qdenga vaccine should be one of them, said the members of the National Immunization Commission (CoNaIn), contrary to the conclusions on this issue issued hours ago by COFESA, the meeting held this Monday by the Ministers of Health of 22 provinces with the person who presides over the national portfolio of the area, Mario Russo.
For days now, the National Ministry of Health has explained in different ways that neither the Pan American Health Organization (WHO-PAHO) nor these national immunization experts are supporting an approach to the dengue outbreak that includes a vaccination campaign. Even more so, considering that the expensive doses from the Japanese laboratory Takeda (there are two and are close to 100,000 pesos), are going through phase 4, that is, the pharmacovigilance period, which is when the effectiveness of the drug is checked “on the street.” ” or in real life.
In reality, phase 4 can last several years and many vaccination strategies begin in that phase. The vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 is an example, whose “emergency” approval It was started exceptionally when the doses were in phase 3.
In any case, it is true that the pharmacovigilance review is recent and that this vaccine does not lack some questions: 1) due to the adverse effects (even under surveillance, although the vaccine formally proved to be safe) and, 2) due to its coverage. . It promoted itself as tetravalent (against the four serotypes of dengue), but due to (one could say) a statistical “lack of maturation”, it still does not have the same success figures against the serotypes 3 and 4compared to the first two.
Even with these borders, the CoNaIn experts took a clear position, which until this Tuesday had not emerged. Or, actually, there had been “evil transpired.”
CoNaIn: who do they recommend vaccinating against dengue
CoNaIn meets quarterly and communicates its recommendations to the Ministry of Health in a “non-binding” manner. The Ministry can follow them, only consider them or directly ignore them.
This same Tuesday, while Clarion confirmed the release of the minutes of the March 7 CoNaIn meeting (a meeting that, by the way, was held in advance, due to the heavy epidemiological context), ministerial sources continued to inform this medium that, according to had advanced to them, the Commission had issued the opposite, in line with the official position communicated until now. As you can see, it was not like that.
The Commission’s minutes do not propose including the dengue vaccine in the official vaccination schedule but rather starting a focused and immediate campaign.
That position can be interpreted as a way of demolishing the argument that “Now it makes no sense to vaccinate because by the time one lifts immunity, the outbreak will already be over.“, and instead ponders the most relevant fact of this virus season: that in some locations in the north, the outbreak is a drama in continuous from 2023.
Going to the specific segments, the minutes specify four points:
1- Advance in the implementation of a focused vaccination strategy against dengue with the Qdenga® vaccine.
2- Define as selection criteria the prioritization of departments according to accumulated incidence and the total contribution of cases.
3- Target population: age group according to technical analysis.
4- Implement prospective modeling work to identify the departments to include in the strategy.
Although cases of dengue were recorded in all groups and among those aged 15 to 64 years, the cumulative incidence is higher than in the general population (321 cases per 100,000 inhabitants), there is “a maximum of 423 cases per 100,000 inhabitants among those between 25 and 29 years old,” says the BEN.
As could be found out, CoNaIn will hold a next meeting in April. They plan – for now as an intention – to add one more recommendation: that everyone be vaccinated against dengue. teenagers.
Vaccine against dengue, a short circuit between CoNaIn and the Ministry of Health
Sources linked to this issue were surprised that at COFESA (again: important meeting with almost all the country’s health ministers) the CoNaIn recommendations had not been shared, information that was already available at the Government level.
But, since it was a reserved meeting, perhaps the recommendation was discussed. It seems less striking that this has not emerged than the fact that the opposite has been circulated: that CoNaIn did not recommend the dengue vaccine.
Two provisional hypotheses explain why an attempt may have been made to puncture the vaccine balloon as an official tool.
The first is that, regardless of whether or not it is considered particularly costly (how much is little and how much is a lot in terms of avoiding deaths?), official policy has been showing an explicit intention to step on budgets, in order to achieve the desired fiscal surplus.
The second is a practical reason. And, several sources assure, there are not enough Qdenga vaccines. The available supply would not be sufficient for a large campaign. Precisely for this reason, specialists propose a focused strategy.
To close, several of the sources consulted recalled something that is worth underlining in this context, and that is that immunization is useful, but it is only one more tool. Vaccinating is not enough to control the multiplication of cases.
Instead, the well-known but very poorly applied (and poorly disseminated) waste disposal measures must be applied. Stopping dengue means preventing mosquito breeders from proliferating Temples of the Egyptiansthe vector that transmits the virus.
1711488283
#Governments #position #Immunization #Commission #recommended #vaccinating #dengue