A little over a month ago we announced that the Ministry had finally decided to make available to parents the meningitis B vaccine. We are not talking about introducing it into the vaccination card, but about letting the parents who can afford it be administered to their children.
Is the vaccine late? For many families yes, and especially for the parents of a boy from Boiro, a town in Galicia, which He died last Sunday affected by meningitis B which could not be vaccinated because the vaccine is not yet available in pharmacies for everyone who wants it. And later it arrives if we consider that it has been subsidized by some countries for two years for its national health system.
The mother saw some spots
The boy had a fever and the mother was alarmed when he saw some spots on the skin. He was taken to the hospital where they did everything possible for the child, without success. It is not that it was too late by carelessness, it is that the disease progressed very aggressively. On Sunday 25 the child died for what was diagnosed at that time as a bacterial sepsis.
The crops were pending result and 4 days ago it was learned that the cause of everything had been a meningitis, that is, an infection caused by the bacteria Neisseria Meningitidis, without knowing what serogroup it was, but suspecting that it would be "B", because of the rapid evolution of the infection and because the child was already vaccinated of meningitis C.
That suspicion made the child's parents publicly request that the vaccine enter by calendar, for all children, and in the Voice of Galicia they said that "nobody is going to give us back our son, but we don't want a case like this to happen again". The demand for vaccines in pharmacies in Galicia began to grow exponentially to the point that they have had to make a waiting list that they estimate will not be solved for several weeks.
Where is the vaccine?
And it is that the vaccine was approved for purchase from October 1, but not yet available to all parents. The distribution is still very precarious and pharmacies are dropping.
The curious thing is that while there in Galicia people "queue" to get it, in other parts of the country there are parents who would like to put their children but can not, because the price is very high (prohibitive, I would say).
The meningitis B vaccine, named Bexsero, has a price of € 106.15 per dose, 4 doses being necessary if the child is under 6 months, 3 doses if between 6 months and 2 years and two doses from 2 years of age.
For some parents, like me, for example, that I have three children, vaccinating them with the two doses corresponding to each of them means a disbursement of € 636.90. Where do I get so much money? Do I vaccinate only the smallest? Do I give only one dose to each?
Confirmed: died of meningitis B
Yesterday the results of the crops that confirmed that the boy died affected by a meningitis B And that's when we all ask ourselves three questions:
- Why did they not allow parents to buy the vaccine two years ago, when all countries did the same except the United Kingdom and Canada that directly subsidized it?
- Why didn't they allow parents to buy the vaccine a year ago, when the AEP asked for the vaccine to be included in the vaccine calendar?
- Why do they put it on sale for parents to buy and only those who can afford it when the meningitis C vaccine is financed, serogroup that has always given less case of meningitis than B?
The Xunta does not intend to include the vaccine in the official calendar
From the Ministry of Health there is no voice that has spoken in this regard, but from the Xunta de Galicia, stating that At the moment there is no intention to include the vaccine in the official calendar because they have to study the situation well. What do they have to study? Well, budgets. It is not an economic vaccine and vaccinating all children with it is a lot of money to make a decision that applies now.
I am sure that sooner or later it will enter, that the Spanish government will finance it for all children, more if we take into account that next year the Prevenar and Varivax vaccines will be financed, which protect for less dangerous diseases than meningitis B.
But meningitis B is uncommon
That's right, luckily. Meningitis B affects, according to the AEP, about 400-600 people each year. The problem is that of those 400-600, 40 to 60 die (1 in 10 does not survive), and the rest have a high risk of having more or less important neurological sequelae.
