Pneumonia: 7 out of 10 adults who should be vaccinated are not

D & # 39; after NICOLÁS MALDONADO
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The high mortality rate of pneumonia in the elderly, last year the health authorities incorporated in the official calendar the pneumococcal vaccine for persons over 65 or any disease that justifies its application. But the fact that it is now available free of charge in hospitals does not seem to have significantly improved its coverage rate at this time. As suggested by a survey released a few days ago, seven out of ten Argentine adults who should be vaccinated have not done so yet.

According to the survey – conducted among 337 adults commissioned by the Pfeizer laboratory, maker of the vaccine Prevenar – 69% of those consulted had not received the pneumococcal vaccine despite the right to do so because that they were over 65 years old or had comorbidities such as asthma, COPD, diabetes, transplantation, cardiovascular disease and HIV.

As an outpatient, it can sometimes be serious, require hospitalization and even be fatal. In fact, a study conducted a few years ago in our country showed that one in four people over 65 who is hospitalized because of this disease dies in the year following their hospitalization.

Faced with this prospect, only three of ten vaccinated adults "is alarming; all the more so as we talk about a population at risk and a free vaccine available to the elderly and the elderly. people with comorbidities, "says Dr. Gustavo Lopardo, infectious disease doctor and former president of the Argentine Society.The key, his recommendation

Another fact no less significant than the study showed is that among those who were vaccinated (31% of participants) the main motivation that led them to do so was the recommendation of a health professional. "Although in vaccination there is much to be done to improve, nothing replaces the medical advice, "says Lopardo, for whom" it is a priority to work with all professionals of other specialties such as cardiologists, gynecologists, pulmonologists, clinicians and gerontologists to explain to his patients the benefits of vaccination. "

Its advantages are not minor: a US study of 2,034 people over 65 treated for community-acquired (non-hospital) pneumonia showed that those who had pneumococcal conjugate vaccine 13 is 73% less likely to be hospitalized.

of this type confirm the importance of vaccination in this population to prevent complications and even death, and represent a real challenge for the medical community: do not join the guards with unvaccinated pneumonia to not know the existence of vaccines or because their doctors have forgotten to recommend them, "says Lopardo.

According to him "we must update the concept of vaccines and understand that they are not at all an exclusive tool for children: today we have vaccines for all stages of life, for that adults know that there are some that are mandatory for them.It is possible to prevent pneumonia and it is a common work of the whole society. "