New requirement will encourage travelers to get vaccinated, says director of Anvisa

The director of Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) Alex Machado Campos believes that the new border control rule will encourage travelers to get vaccinated and, in the future, make an exception to the quarantine of those who are not immunized.

“Travelers know they will have an advantage with the vaccine,” he declared. Responsible for the areas of ports, airports and borders, he considered positive the ordinance that creates the new requirements to enter Brazil — even with restrictions on entry by land that are more lax than those recommended by the agency.

The director of Anvisa claims that charging for the vaccine is a “point of no return”, it has airline companies and should enter into international sanitary rules. The idea is to contain the advance of the pandemic in Brazil, a challenge that recently won the omicron variant as a new element.

Starting on the 18th, the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government will charge the vaccination certificate to allow travelers from other countries to enter airports, and require a five-day quarantine for those who are not immunized, as recommended by Anvisa about a month ago .

At land borders, the order is to release the entry of non-vaccinated individuals who present a negative test for Covid-19. Anvisa already suggested barring those who did not have the certificate.

“The modal of dissemination [da Covid] is the air. In terrestrial we already have problems. The country is very big, the borders are porous. But even so the government put the vaccine. For the person who wants to move with peace of mind, it is better to get vaccinated”, said Campos.

The government’s idea was to put the ordinance into effect this Saturday (11), but the plans were postponed after a hacker attack on the Ministry of Health.

“We spent the last two days working intensively, training teams to approach travelers, in addition to updating the form for entry into Brazil. Let’s take advantage of this period to see if there is an operational issue that deserves to be improved”, said the director.

Anvisa follows the government’s work to recover the data and there is no discussion about reviewing the new form of border control, he said.

“Quarantine is going to be an option for almost a few people, who for some reason have not been vaccinated. As for countries that have not yet vaccinated everyone,” stated Campos.

The updating of border control rules goes against the speech of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who repudiates any type of restriction on non-immunized people and abhors the idea of ​​a “vaccine passport”.

There are still doubts from SUS managers about how to monitor the quarantine. Those who have not received the vaccine will have to indicate, before boarding, on the DSV (Traveller’s Health Declaration), the place where they will complete the isolation period.

These data are delivered to the Cievs (Center for Strategic Information on Health Surveillance), coordinated by the Ministry of Health, which mobilizes a network of agents from states and municipalities.

“It submits the traveler to a monitoring process. ‘Ah, but it’s flawed’. The citizen knows that he will be under possible supervision, even if by screening or at random,” Campos said, defending that there is disincentive to breaking the quarantine.

For Anvisa, the new rules also ward off anti-vaccination tourism. The vaccination certificate will be collected on boarding, by the airline, and also by airport inspectors upon arrival in Brazil.

The agency suggested requiring proof at the borders on November 12, as revealed by leaf. The government had been ignoring the idea, but was cornered by questions in the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and recommendations by the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União).

In a meeting on Tuesday (7), ministers told Bolsonaro that the decision was not just political, as it had increased the pressure and the risk of the government being held responsible for omission.

Mayors and governors also called for tighter border controls.

The governor of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), said that the “passport” will be adopted in the territory of the state, if the Bolsonaro government does not cover the vaccination certificate by December 15th.

This Thursday (9), Bolsonaro reacted to Doria: “Your state, the fuck, what if you haven’t been vaccinated? And we all have to react. And react how? Protesting against it,” he said.

The government agreement to accept part of Anvisa’s suggestion was to try to remove Bolsonaro from the decision and also reinforce that the change does not impose a passport for the vaccine.

In parallel, the president reinforced, in his speech to supporters, that he will never put barriers to the unvaccinated, ignoring the new ordinance.

In the press announcement about the rules, on Tuesday, in addition to criticizing the vaccine passport, Minister Marcelo Queiroga (Health) repeated Bolsonaro’s denial ideas.

“This issue of vaccination has worked out because we respect individual freedoms. The president said a moment ago: sometimes it is better to lose your life than to lose your freedom,” said the minister.

In documents sent to the government to defend the charging of the certificate or quarantine to non-vaccinated people, Anvisa pointed out that Brazil had vulnerable borders and was out of line with the rest of the world.

“The federal government imposed milder measures to this modal [aéreo] when compared to those adopted worldwide by countries that have had greater success in containing the pandemic,” said a note addressed to the Civil House.

For the director of Anvisa, this scenario has changed, and Brazil has reached a reasonable level of border protection. “There are tougher countries, but Brazil has a variable that has to be considered, the advance of vaccination coverage,” he stated.

In changing the rules, the government ignored Anvisa’s suggestion to bar travelers who had been to four African countries (Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia) to contain the spread of omicron.

Campos, who is a lawyer and career servant at the Chamber, stated that this recommendation is maintained. Six countries in the region are currently under restriction: South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland (Eswatini), Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.