17:20 September 4, 2020.
On September 4, in the Sakhalin region, as well as throughout the country, the vaccination campaign against influenza and SARS was launched. The regional Ministry of Health sets ambitious goals – to vaccinate at least 75% of the population. The Minister of Health of the Sakhalin Region, Vladimir Kuznetsov, told how this will happen, and the infectious disease doctor Oksana Solonina noted the importance of vaccinations, especially during the spread of coronavirus.
Vaccination teams
Vaccination takes place on Sakhalin free of charge, and almost all categories of the population are subject to it – adults, children, and patients with chronic diseases. The important thing is that getting the flu shot will become even easier and more affordable. In this regard, vaccination teams have been created in the region. From Monday they will not work in places of mass recreation, shopping centers, bus stops, etc. For this, additional medical workers from those institutions that are not currently involved in covid activities, and students of a medical college will be attracted. Of course, it will still be possible to get vaccinated in polyclinics.
– In addition to the fact that the vaccination itself is done, there should be a degree of accounting for these procedures, because each vaccination has a number. There should be a record that this person was vaccinated with just this type of vaccine, at exactly such a time, so these teams will not be sailing independently, but assigned to the clinic, so that there is a single record of those patients who have been vaccinated. You only need to have a passport with you, – said Vladimir Kuznetsov.
As for pneumonia, the Sakhalin Region in this regard is one of the pioneers in the Russian Federation, where at the same time vaccination is given against both influenza and pneumococcal infection. To date, a vaccine has been purchased at the expense of the regional budget and patients will be vaccinated against influenza and pneumonia at the same time.
The immunization paradox
“I have been working in practical medicine with childhood infections for 30 years and continue to respect any infection, no matter how easy it may seem in our opinion,” Oksana Solonina, the chief freelance children’s infectious disease specialist of the Sakhalin Ministry of Health, spoke. – Now comes the time of the paradox of immunization. When there was mass vaccination in the 50s, we practically outlived all childhood infections that caused significant damage, child mortality. And my mom had no questions to vaccinate or not. The main task was not to miss the date of vaccination and get vaccinated on time. What have we got? Mass immunization has led to the fact that we have practically outlived the childhood infections that we were so afraid of before. They are practically gone. And today, sometimes graduates do not see such infections as measles and rubella. For example, I remember how my grandmother told how children died from diphtheria, and this mass immunization led to the creation of calmness and the fear of infection, so now there is some kind of anti-vaccination campaign that is not entirely clear to me. But any microorganism (flu, measles, coronavirus) is a living organism with its own intelligence, and we cannot say how it will behave. There is no such knowledge of the organism to understand how the microorganism will behave in contact with the human body. And all our achievements in medicine, all antibiotic therapy still cannot be compared in terms of safety with vaccination. You can do everything right with an infection, not make a single medical mistake, but get a negative result – the patient’s death from an infectious disease.
What is the danger of this season?
– The rise of common respiratory infections is on the way, including influenza amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. And we all perfectly see what is happening in our city right now. We are all tired of contactless life, of those preventive measures that we must constantly use and apply in our lives. Until there is a mass vaccination against coronavirus, it is premature to say that this infection will end and the city will be clean. Both viruses act on blood vessels and after these infections, even if you have suffered moderate severity and come out of it relatively safely, the risk of vascular accidents – heart attacks, strokes, may increase during the year. And how are we going to deal with this? Everyone says that you need to quickly get a flu shot and continue to work with coronavirus infection. Do you understand what could be? The direct combination of the two viruses will lead to more severe cases, and they already say that the model of this mix combination will not give any medical institution a chance for such a patient to recover. If we do not have an immunological layer against influenza in the rise of respiratory infections, there will be a large number of hospitalizations and, naturally, there will be a shortage of medical space where specialized care needs to be provided. This can also lead to some additional losses, – added Oksana Solonina.
The vaccination of the population against the new coronavirus infection is tentatively planned to begin at the end of 2020.
.
