Not half of children aged 5 to 11 have a full Covid vaccination

Vaccination for 5 to 11 years old against Covid started in January of this year in Brazil, but so far, less than half of the estimated 20.5 million children in this age group have a record of two-dose immunization – which undermines protection against Covid-19. the disease.

According to official data from the Ministry of Health, 6 out of 10 children aged 5 to 11 in the country took their first dose against Covid until July this year (63% of the total). But only 4 out of 10 children of this age also have a record of the second dose of the vaccine (43%). This means that less than half of the child population has completed the vaccination schedule against the disease.

Childhood immunization against the disease began in the country with Pfizer, applied to children aged 5 to 11 from January 14 this year. Then it was the turn of Coronavac, which started to be given to the group from 6 to 17 years old from the 20th of the same month.

THE Sheet tabulated information from DataSUS to verify how many children aged 5 to 11 years had a first dose recorded in the first semester of the vaccination campaign and a second dose within the stipulated interval of 28 days between doses for Coronavac and eight weeks for pediatric Pfizer .

The data show that the pace of vaccination in this age group is slow – and stagnated in July. At that time, the country reached the mark of 40% of children completely immunized against Covid. But the rate has risen little since then and remains below 45%.

The scenario has worried experts, who note, in the so-called “hesitant population”, a greater resistance in childhood vaccination compared to adult immunization. In practice, it’s as if a group of parents or guardians even took the “risk” (in big quotes) of getting vaccinated, but they don’t do the same for their children.

The motivations for this, analyzes Dayane Machado, a researcher at Unicamp, are among the most common types of misinformation when it comes to vaccination. Case of fear of serious or unknown side effects and perception of low risk of illness in children – despite research showing otherwise. Machado has investigated vaccination in a context of scientific denialism.

The problem is that the low adherence to childhood vaccination against Covid can also affect the little ones, children aged 3 and 4, who have just had immunization resumed in the country after a bottleneck in the availability of vaccines. Coronavac was approved for this group by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) and recommended by the Ministry of Health in July. More recently, Pfizer was approved by Anvisa, on September 16, for the population aged 6 months to 4 years (with three doses in the primary vaccination schedule).

The data tabulated by Sheet also show that the North of the country has the worst immunization rates against Covid in the age group from 5 to 11 years. All states in this region have less than 30% of the child population fully immunized. In Roraima and Rondônia, rates are below 20%.

Going further: of the children aged 5 to 11 years who took the vaccine in the first half of the children’s campaign, about a third (32%) are late for the second dose – which also undermines protection against the disease. In numbers: 13 million children started vaccinating, but only about 9 million completed the vaccination schedule within the appropriate time between doses.

Until the closing of this text, the Ministry of Health had not responded to the question of the Sheet on the low adherence of the child population to vaccination against Covid, according to official data from the folder itself.

In recent reports on childhood immunization, however, the ministry has said that it “articulated actions to encourage vaccination, including advertising on TV, radio, outdoor media and the internet.” And he said that “encouraging childhood vaccination is also the responsibility of states and municipalities.”

According to Machado, from Unicamp, welcoming the population’s doubts is always a good strategy for engagement with immunization, “regardless of whether the sources of information are the press, health professionals, official bodies, etc.”

THE Sheet extracted vaccination information for children aged 5 to 11 years from Datasus on the 20th. The records of the first dose up to July 14th were analyzed. To verify delays between doses, considering the vaccine intervals of each manufacturer, the records of second dose application until August 11 for Coronavac and until September 12 for Pfizer were analyzed.

Tracking Covid-19 vaccinees in Datasus data is possible because each immunized person is registered in the system with an individual code, to which information such as age and dose of vaccine received are linked. THE Sheet It also considered the IBGE population estimate for the age group in 2022, which defines the goals of vaccination campaigns.