- In 2021, only 27.5% of one-year-old children had a complete vaccination schedule.
- 47% of the municipalities nationwide are at high risk of a poliomyelitis outbreak.
- Through vaccination it is possible to protect children from diseases that are re-emerging in different parts of the world and that could reach the country.
Medical specialists insist on the urgency of recovering childhood vaccination schemes at the national level. Only at the end of 2021 did they barely reach between 56 and 86% coverage in children from 12 to 35 months of age and 27.5% in 1-year-old boys and girls. This leaves the population exposed to the outbreak of diseases such as poliomyelitis.
Since the end of 2020, international organizations warned about the importance of recovering vaccination schemes. It was from the Covid-19 pandemic that a deficit was generated in the protection of diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis B, among others.
“The goal of the Universal Vaccination Program of the Ministry of Health is the control of these diseases through the immunization of 95% of the population at risk. It is considered that, if this percentage is reached, we can speak of healthy vaccination rates; However, in our country, only the state of Nuevo León reaches this figure and we have states that barely reach 59% coverage”, said Dr. Eduardo Arias de la Garza, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Associate of the INP Pediatric Infectious Diseases Service.
Disease that could reappear in Mexico
As a result of this deficit, there is a risk that the outbreak of diseases such as polio become a reality. Although this disease was eradicated in Mexico since 1990, recently It has reappeared not only in Africa and Asia, where a total of 30 cases have been recorded so far in 2022, but in nearby countries like the United States.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Polio affects mostly children under 5 years of age. As long as there is at least one individual infected, the entire environment is at risk of contracting the disease.
At the global level, efforts to combat the disease are marked through a Polio Eradication Strategy 2022-2026. Its objective is to end the virus in places where it still exists and prevent it from returning to regions where it has been eradicated.
Current risk in the country
In our country, the Ministry of Health (SSa) carried out a risk analysis of a poliovirus outbreak and The results indicate that 47% of the municipalities are at high and very high risk of disease recurrence, 31% at medium risk, and 22% at low risk.
“The results of this analysis are extremely worrying, since poliomyelitis is a disease that affects the cells of the spinal cord causing paralysis and can be fatal, however, if we act on time it can be preventable with vaccination,” said Gregory. López, who is Sanofi Mexico’s Vaccine Medical Manager.
For its part, in September 2022 the SSa started the intensive campaign of the hexavalent vaccine in children under one year of age. Protects against six diseases: polio, tetanus, hepatitis B, diphtheria, haemophilus influenzae type B, and whooping cough. The goal is to achieve the greatest coverage against these conditions.
This application should be done at two, four and six months of age, plus a booster at 18 months. It is available throughout the public health sector and is totally free, so it is essential that parents review their children’s booklet and go to their nearest health center to complete their schemes if necessary.
Also read:
Polio in Mexico: 32 years without registered cases
New York declares state of emergency due to recurrence of polio
WHO declares new polio outbreak; it is the second in this 2022
