To counteract the trend, the EYV re-launched its ‘The best plan for this winter’ campaign, which was released for the third consecutive year. According to the ‘Gripómetro’ survey, 59.9% of respondents had seen or heard messages related to the flu vaccination campaign, and about 15.2% recognised the specific message of the EYV initiative. Visibility was highest among people aged 60-64 and in the Basque Country and Galicia regions.
By contrast, the decline does not affect paediatric vaccinations, which remain at stable levels with no significant variations. Those registering the strongest contraction, after anti-Covid, remain the flu vaccines.
Romania, measles alarm
In Romania, the most critical data concerns the MMR vaccine: in 2024, only 62% of children received the second dose, far from the 95% needed to prevent epidemics. A fragility that has already had serious consequences. Between September 2023 and August 2024, the country faced its second measles epidemic in seven years, during which 30 children died, all unvaccinated. Overall, more than 40,000 children who should have received the first dose of the vaccine were not immunised and another 77,000 did not complete the cycle with the second dose. The coverage of the first dose, which had risen to 80% before the pandemic, has fallen to 78% over the past year.
According to Gindrovel Dumitra, coordinator of the Family Physicians’ Vaccinology Group, this situation is no longer linked to supply difficulties as it was in 2016, when the country went through the previous epidemic. Vaccines have always been available in recent years, but parental resistance, fuelled by fear and misinformation, continues to be an obstacle. Dumitra recalls that mistrust of MMR has its roots in 1998, when the now-disproven link between vaccines and autism was circulated. Despite the complete absence of scientific evidence, that suspicion has continued to circulate and it only takes ‘the slightest doubt’, the doctor notes, to undermine public confidence.
Coverage for other mandatory vaccines also shows criticalities. In 2024, 79% of children received the first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine, while 38,000 were not vaccinated even once. In contrast, the most recent vaccines are making steady progress. The HPV vaccination, which was made free of charge for boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 19, improved coverage significantly between 2019 and 2024. The same was true for the vaccines against rotavirus, Haemophilus influenzae type b and pneumococcus, with measurable effects: according to WHO and UNICEF, the new coverages have contributed to a reduction in HPV infections and related cancers, as well as in hospitalisations for rotavirus diarrhoea, pneumonia and invasive diseases in children.