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Date Published: 12/05/2022
ARCHIVED - Covid hospitalisations soar by 24 per cent in a week in Alicante province
The vast majority of hospital admissions in Alicante are over 70 with other health issues
Health experts are warning that Spain is on the cusp of a seventh wave of the coronavirus pandemic as hospitalisations continue to rise, and Alicante province is no exception with a 24% increase in admissions in the last week.
As has been the case throughout the health crisis, the elderly are the most affected. The vast majority of admissions across the 10 hospitals in the province at the moment are aged over 70-years-old and suffer from other pathologies.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday May 10, 230 Covid-patients are currently on hospital wards in the province, 14 of them in intensive care units.
The hospital with the highest number of patients is Doctor Balmis in Alicante city, with 53 patients occupying two-and-a-half floors and three in ICU. It's followed by Denia, with 31 patients, and Elda, with 23 patients and two in ICU, according to the Nursing Union Satse. Vinalopó and Torrevieja have the fewest patients, with four each and no one in intensive care.
Health experts have warned the increase in admissions amongst the elderly suggests that vaccine antibodies amongst this age group - which received a booster jab at the end of last year - are decreasing. Of course, the scrapping of restrictions and mask wearing are also having an effect on increased virus circulation.
And whilst some countries are already administering a fourth dose to the elderly, the Public Health Commission in Spain decided last week to delay offering a fourth Covid dose to people over the age of 80 - despite a continued surge in infections - and wait until new serums aimed specifically at the Omicron variant come onto the market.
However, Félix Gutiérrez, professor at Alicante's Miguel Hernández University, says fourth doses should be administered to the elderly sooner rather than later.
"Although at the moment there are no studies that clearly show a benefit of this fourth dose in terms of a drop in hospitalisations and deaths, at the moment it is the only effective tool we have to protect the elderly population".
The professor also hopes that the elderly will soon be able to benefit from the antiviral Covid pills that have been available in hospitals for some weeks now.
"At the moment they are only given to unvaccinated people, because that is how they were tested in clinical trials. But perhaps their use can be extended, by performing serologies, to elderly people who have lost that vaccine protection".
However, president of the Valencian Society of Preventive Medicine, Juan Francisco Navarro, believes that there is a lack of data to support a fourth dose amongst the over 70s.
"There are people who, due to their age and previous pathologies, may no longer benefit from a new jab", adding that since the pandemic became "flu-like", a lot of information has been lost, "so it is difficult to make value judgments".
The good news for the moment is that the increase in hospitalisations is not having an impact on the province's intensive care units, thanks above all to the "improvement in treatment on the wards, which prevents patients from getting worse", according to Fransisco Navarro.
And this is supported by the health data: in March there were 230 patients admitted as is the case currently, but there were 25 patients in ICU, compared to 14 on Tuesday.
With regards to the profile of ICU patients, "they are over 75 years of age with many medical conditions and we still see people who have not been vaccinated," explained José María Núñez, an Alicante member of the Valencian Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
Now read: How to get a Covid passport and How to make an appointment for a vaccination or booster jab
Image: Archive
staff.inc.ali
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