Report of the Influenza Vaccination Program in Mexico (2006–2022) and Proposals for Its Improvement

Abstract

Background: Influenza has continued to be an important public health challenge, and the WHO recommends that countries consider vaccination for persons at high risk. Mexico has such a program, and we sought to determine its current situation. Material and Methods: This study has an ecological, longitudinal, and retrospective design based on secondary information on the acquisition and application of vaccines against influenza from official data from 2006 to 2022. Results: We found annual variability in the numbers of purchases and application of doses, with coverage of less than 90% of the total population every year; in addition, 17 million vaccines were not used in this period. Discussion: This study shows the situation of the program at the national level. Two institutions acquired fewer the vaccines, while one purchased more for its target population, but the necessary vaccinations were not acquired. On average, 1.7 million of the vaccines purchased annually were not used, but in some years, more vaccines were applied than were purchased in all of the institutions. We also observed that, between institutions, the vaccine coverage was very different, from 21% to 180%. On average, 6.2 million people were not vaccinated annually, between 16% and 22% of the target population, demonstrating low coverage. When we compared the coverage data that we calculated to the data published by the institutions, a great difference was observed. Conclusions: We found inconsistencies in the data, indicating their unreliability and potential disorganization within the program, as the target populations of each institution were not clear. In addition, the application data may have had reporting errors. Adequate coverage was not achieved, and the coverage was different from that reported in the official sources. We propose the implementation of different systems for control, evaluation, and access to the information of the program.

Keywords

• influenza
• influenza vaccine program
• Mexico
• low coverage
• vaccine acquisition