The Popular Party included it in its electoral program and once in the government the Ministry of Health has announced that the unification of the vaccination calendar would take place. However, there are certain difficulties when launching the single vaccination calendar.
The biggest obstacle is the inclusion or not of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, indicated against meningitis, among other pathologies.
This vaccine is funded by the Community of Madrid and Galicia, but the rest of the communities have serious reluctance to include it in the single calendar due to its high cost (three doses at a price of between 40 and 50 euros each). And this despite the fact that Spanish pediatricians have claimed their generalization for years.
But it is that, calculating that some 450,000 children should be vaccinated, we talk about a disbursement of between 54 and 67.5 million euros, something that the autonomous coffers are not willing to assume in this time of thin cows. For its part, Madrid and Galicia refuse to withdraw it.
Age of administration of chickenpox vaccine
Apart from the meningitis vaccine, other differences to be filed between the different communities would be the ages of application of immunizations, something that, according to experts, should not give greater headaches to the Ministry.
As for the age of administration of the chickenpox vaccine, Madrid, Navarra, Ceuta and Melilla administer it at 15 months of age and the rest at the adolescent age. The cost-efficiency of the vaccine is again the key to the dispute.
A single dose is applied, at an approximate price of 40 euros, both for children and adolescents, what happens is that in the case of communities that vaccinate at age 14 the cost is reduced since 80% of adolescents over 14 years old has already had chickenpox and do not need to get vaccinated.
This is so strange (do not get vaccinated before to save, so you pass the disease and I do not have to vaccinate you later) is not done in Madrid, Navarra and the autonomous cities: administering the vaccine at 15 months (that is, at all children), the incidence of chickenpox and its possible complications is practically non-existent.
In the next few days, the Ministry and autonomous communities will hold a teleconference for try to bring positions on the single vaccine calendar, a claim of pediatricians. The objective is to take a concrete proposal to the Interterritorial Council at the end of February, although as we see these positions are far away, for the moment.
