(Montreal) The free vaccination of certain seniors against shingles, provided for in the Girard budget, is a great delight for the Réseau FADOQ, which has been asking for it for years.
The measure, provided for in the budget tabled on Tuesday, went under the radar. Quebec plans to spend $124.6 million over five years to provide free shingles vaccine to 800,000 people.
Several details are still unknown, such as the age categories targeted and the date of entry into force of the measure. At the time these lines were written, the Ministry of Health and Social Services had not responded to our questions on this subject.
Still, it’s “excellent news”, exclaimed in an interview on Wednesday, Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, president of the FADOQ Network. “It was one of our requests for several years. »
The National Institute of Public Health reports that there are 27,000 cases of shingles each year in Quebec, which leads to 600 hospitalizations.
Already in December 2017, the Quebec Committee on Immunization unanimously recommended the establishment of a vaccination program against shingles.
