50% of Elderly People aged 85+ Years Immunized in the 1st Month

Half of people aged 85 or over have already been vaccinated against the flu this year, according to estimates from monitoring the vaccination campaign, which started about a month ago.

According to the results of the first wave of the Vacinometer, an initiative of the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology and the Portuguese Association of General and Family Medicine (APMGF), 49.7% of people aged 85 or over received vaccination during the first month of the vaccination campaign.

Among the groups included in the recommendations of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), the Vacinometer indicates a transversal increase in vaccination coverage compared to the previous year.

According to the survey, 39% of people aged 65 or over and 44.6% of people with chronic illnesses have already received the flu vaccine, compared to last year, at the same time, the percentage was around 32% for both situations.

Still within the scope of the priority groups, 32.8% of healthcare professionals with direct contact with patients have already been vaccinated, up from 18.5% in October 2024, and 16.1% of people between 60 and 64 years of age (they were 14.4% at the same time in 2024).

The only exception to this upward trend are pregnant women: in October 2024, 54.2% had been vaccinated, a percentage that now drops to 38.6%.

As for children between 6 and 24 months of age, to whom free vaccination was extended this year, 26.2% have already received the flu vaccine.

More than half of those vaccinated (62%) opted for co-administration with the covid-19 vaccine.

As in previous years, the doctor’s recommendation remains the main driver for vaccination, especially in situations of pregnancy and chronic illness, in which it was mentioned by seven out of 10 respondents.

On the other hand, around a quarter of respondents said they had been vaccinated on their own initiative, while 14.6% reported a work initiative, 9.4% due to notification of scheduling by the National Health Service and 2.9% because they knew they were part of a risk group for a certain pathology.

By region, the Vacinometer shows that, of the people aged 65 or over vaccinated, 47.8% are in Alentejo, 44.9% in the Center, 39.7% in Lisbon and 39.2%, regions where vaccination coverage in the first month of the campaign increased compared to last year.

On the other hand, there are fewer people vaccinated in the Autonomous region of Madeira (23.8% compared to 56% last year) and in the Algarve (14.8% compared to 18.9% last year), while in the Azores, despite remaining among the lowest (17.1%), vaccination coverage more than doubled compared to October 2024, when only 7.1% of the population included in the DGS recommendations had received the vaccine. vaccine.

Launched in 2009, the Vacinometer is carried out through field work that took place between October 15th and 20th, with telephone questionnaires, allowing monitoring, in real time, the flu vaccination coverage rate in priority groups recommended by the DGS.

The seasonal vaccination campaign against flu and covid-19 began on September 23 and is taking place in pharmacies and units of the National Health Service (SNS).