The plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS) this Wednesday analysed the situation of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 throughout the country and the state of the Vaccination Campaign for the population.
The Minister of Health assessed the good progress of the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in Spain and pointed out that more than 86% of people over the age of 60 already have booster doses.

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Carolina Darias has advanced that a change in the model for monitoring cases of COVID-19 is being studied, once this pandemic wave has been overcome and in collaboration with European bodies and from co-governance.
Madrid, 12 January 2022 – At its meeting this afternoon, the extraordinary plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS) analysed the situation of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the progress of the Vaccination Campaign in Spain. The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, also explained to the members of the CISNS the negotiation and purchase of the new drug against COVID-19: Paxlovid from the company Pfizer.

“This is great news, as we are going to have another weapon in the fight against the virus,” said Darias, while explaining that, with the information available on Paxlovid, in certain cases, this drug has shown an 89% reduction in the risk of hospitalisation related to COVID-19 or death from any cause compared to placebo within three days of the onset of symptoms.

The drug has been under centralised assessment by the EMA since 19 November 2021 and is expected to be authorised within a few weeks. On 10 January, the Prime Minister announced the signing of a bilateral purchase agreement with Pfizer for 344,000 complete treatments. This is a one-year contract that will be in addition to the joint centralised purchasing that we will carry out with the EU.

The minister explained that, in order to ensure the supply of this medicine in an equitable manner according to established prioritisation criteria, the AEMPS will carry out a controlled distribution through the application for the Management of Medicines in Special Situations. The procedure will be established with the Autonomous Communities and Cities, as well as the prioritisation criteria that are already being worked on with a group of experts for the rest of the medicines active against COVID-19.

Reflection on the new situation

The minister also stressed that, in the current context, “reflection is necessary. It is clear that despite the sixth wave in which we find ourselves, the situation is not the same as in previous waves”. In this sense, he advanced that “in the face of this change in the epidemiology of the disease we have to be able to anticipate new scenarios”. For this reason, the corresponding bodies are working on adapting to a new surveillance and control system for COVID-19, once this sixth epidemic wave in which we are immersed has been overcome.

The minister explained that “this process of evaluating a possible modification of the current strategies has already been initiated by the experts on the Interterritorial Council’s Alerts Committee, at the same time as we are promoting this debate with our European partners with the aim of determining the best options for dealing with a pandemic disease that is gradually becoming endemic, at least in our environment, but with all due caution, because it is still capable of continuing to impact our lives and our health systems”.

Epidemiological situation and vaccination campaign

The Minister of Health explained that we are experiencing the highest incidence figures recorded during the entire pandemic in our country and that we have been experiencing a continuous increase for 10 weeks now. “With all due caution, we can see that the speed of growth of the epidemic wave has slowed down in the last week,” she said.

The high incidences observed during this epidemic wave are associated with a progressively lower probability of hospitalisation than that observed during most of the epidemic. Of the cases infected between 13 and 26 December 2021, less than 2% had been hospitalised as of yesterday, compared to around 6% in the previous two months and more than 8% observed in the third epidemic wave in January 2021. The same downward trend is observed in both the probability of ICU admission and case fatality.

With regard to the progress of vaccination, the minister reiterated her congratulations on the work of the Autonomous Communities. “The work carried out by all the parties involved is exemplary,” she said, and recalled that a series of milestones were set at the Conference of Presidents on the 22nd. Among them, that 80% of the population over 60 years of age should be vaccinated with booster doses by 31 December 2021. This milestone was achieved three days before the end of the year and today, more than 86% of our citizens over 60 years of age have been vaccinated with the booster dose.

Another of the objectives was the vaccination of children, and in that sense the objective is that in the first fortnight of February 70% of our children between 5 and 11 years of age will have their first dose in the week of 7 February. Currently, 37% coverage for the first dose has already been reached, Darias said. The minister stressed the importance of the vaccine in all age groups and, in particular, in pregnant women, as it has been shown that unvaccinated pregnant women are twice as likely to have complications from the disease as vaccinated women.

Another of the commitments established at the Conference of Presidents was to increase collaboration with the Ministry of Defence, which has been a constant throughout the pandemic, in terms of tracking and vaccination. To this end, a total of 150 mobile vaccination teams from the Ministry of Defence have been made available to the Autonomous Communities and Cities to further accelerate the administration of doses of vaccine against COVID-19. At present, a total of 15 Autonomous Communities and Cities have requested EMV. In addition to these teams, more than 1,500 Armed Forces personnel are collaborating in screening activities.