The subject of vaccines in Spain is worthy of a serial, soap opera or humor program, because there are many who feel that we are facing an incredible messing or ranting. A few days ago I tried to report the chickenpox issue here at Babies and more and I had to withdraw the entrance because there is no way of knowing (without dying in the attempt) how each autonomous community will do it. The tetanus vaccine at 4-6 years has not been given for months because there is a shortage. Now the pentavalent begins to be missing, as well as that of meningitis C, which at least in Catalonia has already told us that we will soon run out of it.
And among all this tremendous mess we find that of the meningitis B vaccine, the "Bexsero", which has been missing in combat for weeks with the aggravating fact that some parents are being told that if they get only one dose, do not take it because the nurse is not going to put it unless he has the following doses: Where is the 'Bexsero' meningitis B vaccine and what to do if you only get one dose?
Where is the Bexsero vaccine?
This sure you already know all who have gone to buy it: is in a situation of "stock breakage". This means that the demand for vaccines has far exceeded the forecasts of the manufacturer, Novartis, and has reached a point where it is totally impossible to meet that demand, ceasing to give dates.
The vaccine was put on sale, theoretically, on October 1, which is when it was reported that it could begin to be acquired. The arrival of this vaccine to pharmacies was a dropper in what could be a logical forecast, since it is a new vaccine that involves a significant outlay (€ 106.15 each dose) and it was missing that parents were informed and that they agreed to buy it.
A month later it was learned that a baby had died in Galicia from meningitis B and this made the effect called especially there, but probably also in the rest of Spain, and it began to date the dispensing of the vaccine: in pharmacies they talked to you about one or two weeks to sell it to you.
Already at the end of December the demand was far exceeding the offer and that is when it was decided to declare the vaccine in a situation of stock breakage: the pharmacies ask for it but they can't tell you when they will get it. What we know today is that there is no date, although it is rumored that it will be starting in April when the people who request it now could get it (April at best, because I have heard May and June, too).
What if I only get one dose?
In the nursing office I have had mothers who have brought me a dose to vaccinate their baby without knowing when they will get the second and mothers who have explained to me that they have not bought the vaccine because at the pharmacy they have told you that if they do not have all the doses we will not put them.
Given the lack of stock and the possibility that the vaccination schedule (which you can see here above) is not done correctly, there seems to be an indication (we believe that the Ministry) to try to ensure the doses to each baby. Something like "if a mother gets a vaccine, you have to ensure that you can sell her the second, third and fourth dose so she can complete the vaccination." However, as sources of the AEP explained to us two days ago, it is a measure of difficult compliance for two obvious reasons:
- Selling four doses to a family is irresponsible: waiting to have all four doses for a family to buy is a very questionable measure. First, because you are forcing a family to pay more than 420 euros at once, and thus not all families will be able to meet the cost, second, because while waiting to have the four doses to sell them together the baby could have received the first dose and be already protected, and third, because a family should not have to take four vaccines that require preservation in a refrigerator, since a failure in the supply of light can make them unusable.
- GSaving vaccines for a family means that other parents do not have them: If the vaccines arrive almost in droppers and you have to go making packs of four to sell them to the families, or if they are sold separately but they are reserved for those already vaccinated, you are waiting for the rest of the families to get it much older.
So when in doubt, and again contrasting it with the AEP, if some parents get a dose it is advisable to administer it to the baby and ask the pharmacy for a new dose. If it arrives for when it touches the second, perfect. If it does not arrive, it is considered that each vaccine administered counts, and the only thing that is done is to wait for that dose to arrive, without losing the first one (if five or six months pass, for example, the first vaccination does not have to be repeated because it is still counted as a valid dose).
A practical example
I give you an example that happened to me in the consultation a few days ago. A mother of two girls about 7 months and 6 years got two vaccines 'Bexsero'. My intention was to give one dose to each, but a pediatrician had told him that since he had only two doses, the ideal was to vaccinate the older one, since after 2 years only two doses of the vaccine are needed. I commented my opinion, but we did it just as the pediatrician said because it is what she preferred to do.
I wanted to contrast this way of proceeding and from the AEP they have told us that the ideal would have been to vaccinate the baby, because it has up to 10 times more risk of contracting the disease than the 6-year-old girl. Come on, that the logical thing would have been to put the two doses to the baby (one now and another within two months, when it is the second), or one to each girl and wait to get the next.
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In Babies and more | Meningitis, know it better: prevention and warning symptoms, Vaccine calendar 2014: news, who needs an anti-vaccine movement with the Ministry of Health we have?
