Nestor Jimenez and Alonso Urrutia
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday March 1, 2023, p. fifteen
Behind the campaign to induce government purchase of vaccines is business interests
who have spread the false
idea of a reduction of the public budget in the matter, affirmed the undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion of the Ministry of Health (Ssa), Hugo López-Gatell.
During the morning press conference at the National Palace, the official assured that in the case of universal vaccination there is an increase in resources for its purchase in 2023 of almost 35 percent, going from 2.12 to 3.25 billion pesos.
While in the case of coronavirus vaccines there was a reduction of 17.4 billion pesos, going from 28.1 to 10.6 billion pesos, a decision made upon confirmation of immunity.
The immune system protection of the combined people of Mexico possibly exceeds 90 percent. When we say possible, it is not speculation, the results of the National Health and Nutrition Survey are about to come out, where we will have the specific figure, I will not advance it, but we already have indications of a large proportion, the absolute majority, of the protected population, and that’s why we have a low impact disease
he added.
Moments before, he explained that the pattern of epidemic behavior of covid cases will tend to stabilize on an annual basis, possibly coinciding with the cold seasons of the year, in addition to becoming a disease of which few cases will be serious, especially in those who have not been vaccinated.
On the universal vaccination chart, he pointed out that the amount of vaccines purchased fluctuates from year to year, since the surpluses can still be used in the following year. And now there is a supply of vaccines very similar to what you used to have
.
At the same time, there were two outbreaks of measles in 2019 (209 cases), and in 2020 (220 cases), most of those who should have been inoculated during previous governments, which speaks of a vaccination failure in the previous six-year terms
.
He explained that there was also a reduction of two cases of vaccines. In the measles and rubella there was a displacement of Birmex, the public vaccine company, by an opportunistic company that emerged in the past six-year term, which has already disappeared; turned out to be a biller and left us with an immunization delivery deficit
.
In addition, the pharmaceutical companies Glaxo and Merck announced from the beginning of the pandemic that they would not generate the HPV vaccine for two years, which prevented access.
To counteract both cases, the health sector launched an intensive campaign of coverage recovery
with a strategy that emerged in Cuba and adopted throughout the world.
As a result, in 2021, more than 9.5 million antigens were applied against measles, rubella, mumps; in 2022, 1.9 million of the hexavalent, and between last year and the current year there are 1.3 million against HPV, with the goal of reaching 2.2 million doses.
