Opinion – Atila Iamarino: Vaccinate your child against Covid

I already vaccinated my baby against Covid. I recommend that you do the same.

A few days ago, Anvisa approved the first vaccine for children from six months to two years of age. Much to the relief of many families who want to see their children protected — here at home, we cry with joy. But I already advance: as far as the federal government is concerned, it will take a long time for it to be made available at health posts.

This was the last age range without a Covid vaccine. Now, even for the youngest, we have a safe, effective vaccine that, at least here at home, did not cause adverse events. I know this because my 1 year old son has already taken 3 doses. As? We enrolled him in the clinical trial of the vaccine for children up to 2 years old, while it was still experimental. Because you cannot trust that the Brazilian government will mobilize to vaccinate children. We knew the vaccine is safe for other ages and we were lucky enough to be part of the study’s vaccinated group, as we found out with the results reveal last month. Now comes the delay.

Also in December 2021, analyzing the results of thousands of children aged 5 to 11 years vaccinated, Anvisa released the use of the vaccine for this age, under protests and threats. But the Ministry of Health did not move to buy them. The minister was more concerned with creating fanfare and listening to vaccine denialists than Anvisa itself. In July, the agency approved vaccines for children ages 3 to 4. Again, the Ministry of Health stalled, postponed and did so much that we still don’t have enough vaccines. Just over a third of children aged 3 to 11 years completed the vaccination schedule by September. Among children aged 3 to 4, according to the Observa Infância initiative, less than 2% of them completed the vaccination.

And reasons to vaccinate abound. Covid may seem mild among children, but we have many cases. The result is that, until July 2022, Brazil recorded an average of two children under the age of 5 dying from Covid per day. And yet, in an election year, the government’s concern about losing the vote of those who want to see more child deaths is greater than that of releasing safe childhood vaccines. When vaccines were offered by intermediaries and with a bribe (according to the sellers), the purchase took place before Anvisa’s approval.

And this mistrust and sabotage of vaccination extends to other preventable childhood illnesses. While the government only talks about childhood polio vaccination to attack the election propaganda ban, it doesn’t talk about other important vaccines. Since 2018, we have had 40 preventable measles deaths, half of them children. This was a disease that we had eradicated from the country in 2016, but vaccination coverage has dropped so much that we have thousands of cases again.

Covid is one of the concerns, but polio, measles, mumps, rubella and several other diseases can come back if we don’t vaccinate our children.

The Brazilian government has fostered a unique anti-vaccination movement in the world, where people want to get vaccinated, but the government doesn’t want to vaccinate its citizens and throws money and lives in the trash with it. We have reached a point where our vote is the most direct and credible path to a change in childhood vaccination policy. It’s either that or accept that two deaths of children a day, from a preventable disease, “are absolutely within a level that does not imply emergency decisions”, according to the Minister of Health.