Almost two years ago we received a message in the health center where they told us that we had to stop vaccinating 6-year-old children from the DTPa vaccine (Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis), because there was a shortage and that vaccine had to be reserved for pregnant women.
Two years have passed, there are thousands of unvaccinated children and suddenly it appears in pharmacies for sale. What are they playing with this vaccine?
Why he disappeared from the consultations
When they told us we took it as an anecdote. Something temporary. Sometimes it happens with a vaccine for one or two weeks and then becomes available again, so we told the fathers and mothers to come another day to get vaccinated.
When a few weeks passed and we saw that they were not arriving, we were informed that there would still be a few more weeks, so we began to write down the names of the unvaccinated children, to contact them later.
Meanwhile, the vaccine was given to pregnant women, as a measure to prevent pertussis in newborns, in what is considered a successful preventive measure.
Seeing that it did not arrive, we began to tell the parents that we would already send them the notification that the vaccine was available through the school, by means of a circular or similar with which they were told that all the unvaccinated children who could ask for time to go to the health center to get vaccinated.
Thus, until after one year, it was reported that the problem was with the supply of the pertussis vaccine. Production was scarce, so they were prioritizing the vaccines that carried it, intended for smaller babies, as is logical: the hexavalent and the pentavalent that are put before two years.
It's been almost two years
There are almost two years that we have been waiting for the vaccine to reappear so that six-year-olds, many of whom are already eight, can receive the dose of memory that they receive.
And even at that point, as we read in VacunasAEP, the page of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics dedicated to vaccines, the vaccine has appeared for sale in pharmacies, in a change of which they have not been notified.
It does not make sense this modification, this arrival of doses of the vaccine to pharmacies, especially because it is a vaccine that has always been fully subsidized by social security (there is nothing to pay for it).
I should soon return
Apparently, the problems of producing pertussis vaccine are already solved and the vaccine should soon return to the health centers, but in the meantime, these movements of putting the vaccine for sale do nothing more than generate more conflict and more confusion , and that many parents tell each other: "And now they put it on sale to get money for something they should give us for free".
Anyway, hopefully they stop playing with vaccines and, bouncing, with the health of children. And if they are going to do it, unless they inform us the professionals, so that we can give the appropriate explanations.
