Seasonal influenza campaign 2020 in the context of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an unprecedented public health experience in Chile

Abstract

In Chile, the Immunization Department of the Ministry of Health has carried out the seasonal influenza vaccination campaign annually since 1982 in collaboration with the national health services, regional health offices, and primary health care centres. With the aim of preventing deaths and serious morbidity in high-risk groups and preserving the integrity of health services, the seasonal influenza campaign had been the largest implemented in Chile until 2020, since in 2021 the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2 is expected to become the largest ever implemented. In response to local demographic and epidemiological changes, and taking into account the new scientific evidence on the safety and immunogenicity of vaccines, the influenza vaccines available in Chile would increase annually as a result of campaign planning. In 2020, the influenza campaign had to be re-planned while in progress due to the addition of new high-risk groups to be vaccinated in accordance with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic health alert modification of March 6th, 2020. Over the course of three weeks, the Immunization Department managed to increase the doses of available influenza vaccines from 6,799,800 previously agreed upon to 8,480,325 and thus serve high-risk groups, guaranteeing their access to state funded influenza vaccination.