2024-10-04 08:06:08
“Flu School” is an initiative that aims to raise awareness of the impact of childhood flu and inform on prevention measures to try to avoid the spread of the disease among children and their families.
Image taken from the video on the AstraZeneca Flu School campaign.
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Image taken from the video on the AstraZeneca Flu School campaign.
This campaign on childhood flu promoted by the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca includes a video starring several minors who tell what this disease is, coinciding with the start of the seasonal vaccination campaign.
“They are viruses that get into your throat and you have to stay at home,” explains Cayetano, 6, while Sofía, 4, says it’s when “your head hurts, your nose is running, my stomach hurts, cough…”
And what happens if they infect their parents? “I have to take care of them, they can’t go to work, not even in the car,” says 7-year-old Lucas.
And to protect other people, Chloe says that when she is “bad” she does not kiss her grandparents and everyone knows that they must go to the doctor, cover their mouth when they cough and also wash their hands to prevent this respiratory disease.
Estimate of childhood flu hospitalizations
According to the Dr. Ivan Sanz, responsible for scientific and virological surveillance at the National Influenza Center of Valladolid“It is estimated that between 4,000 and 6,000 children will need to be hospitalized due to flu this season in Spain.”
The incidence of influenza is higher in children than in adults, and children are at high risk for influenza-related complications. In fact, 2 out of 3 children hospitalized for flu have no risk factors.
“Influenza is an often underestimated disease”, explains the doctor, “however it must be kept in mind that it can have serious consequences, especially in children and the elderly”.
For this reason, during the presentation of the “School Flu” campaign, the experts underlined the importance of protecting the little ones from this infectious disease. And it is estimated that in Spain the flu causes around 1,000 cases of hospitalizations with serious complications and around 10 deaths every year among children under 15.
“Those of us who work with influenza are very aware of its impact, but there is still a lot of work to do because society has no real perception of the severity of this disease,” explains the Dr. Fernando Sánchez Perales, medical director of the Vithas University Hospital Madrid La Milagrosa and president of the Pediatric Society of Madrid and Castilla la Mancha.
Younger children are usually the first to fall ill during influenza epidemics, and the highest incidence rates are observed in the group of children between 0 and 4 years of age, followed by those under 15 years of age.
Furthermore, children are considered a key factor in the flu transmission chain because they shed large quantities of the virus over a longer period of time.
Prevention so as not to get sick
Simple gestures such as adequate hygiene, hand washing and interpersonal distance on some occasions, added to compliance with the vaccination calendar, can help prevent contagion.
For this reason, pediatricians recommend extending the vaccination range from 6 months to 59 months (5 years), which is the current coverage, to the entire childhood and adolescence, up to 18 years of age.
So far the recommendation for the flu vaccine is for ages 6 to 59 months. However, the recommendations also take into account risk groups from 5 years of age and adolescents with underlying diseases or certain situations that pose a higher risk of suffering from flu complications.
Additionally, the vaccine is recommended for children aged 5 years and older who live with at-risk patients and people who live with children younger than 6 months.
In statements to EFE and in relation to the start of the vaccination campaign against influenza and covid, the pediatrician and spokesperson for Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV), Fernando Moraga-Llopsupported this expansion as influenza is a very contagious disease, which can be serious and mainly affects children, who are its main transmitters.
Moraga-Llop pointed out that the greatest severity occurs in children under five and especially in those under one. Vaccination is currently not recommended for infants younger than 6 months who are protected by their mother’s vaccination.
According to data provided by Moraga-Llop, in Spain in the last season there were more than 4,239 hospital admissions of children under five years of age. Of them, 822 had serious complications, 249 were admitted to intensive care and eight died.
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