Pfizer delivered this Thursday (27) to the Ministry of Health the first batch of its pediatric vaccine against Covid-19. The flight from Puurs, Belgium, landed at 5:04 am at Viracopos Airport, in Campinas, with 1 million doses of the immunizer, whose use was approved in September by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) for the 6-month-old population. 4 years ago.
The doses are part of an additive to the ministry’s third contract with the company. The agreement provides for 100 million vaccines for the country throughout 2022, including versions for different age groups and the possibility of providing modified versions of the immunizer.
At first, the immunizer should be applied to children with comorbidities and the vaccination schedule for the rest of the population in this age group has not yet been released.
According to the ministry, the shipment will undergo analysis by the INCQS (National Institute for Quality Control in Health) in the coming days for evaluation and quality control, and guidelines on application, target audience and distribution by states will be published in a technical note to from next Monday (31).
According to Anvisa, the vaccine should be applied in three doses of 0.2 mL (equivalent to 3 micrograms) and, to differentiate it from other immunizers, its vials will have wine-colored lids. For children from 5 to 11 years old, the lid is orange and, for the public over 12 years old, purple.
The use of different cap colors is a strategy to avoid administration errors, as the product requires different dosages depending on the age of the children. This facilitates identification by vaccination teams and also by those responsible for the little ones.
Vaccination of children has been a matter of concern. The PSOL bench in the Chamber of Deputies asked the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) to investigate the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, for slowness and lack of transparency in the immunization process of children between six months and four years of age.
For the PSOL deputies who sign the representation sent to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for Citizens’ Rights, linked to the MPF, the Minister of Health may be omitting “in order not to start the application of vaccines on a national scale” and violating an article of the Constitution that treats health as a right for all.
Last Friday (21), the minister denied any delay. “There is no delay, absolutely not a second,” he said during an event in São Paulo.
In Brazil, 1,508 children under the age of five died from Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021. As a result, in two years, deaths from the disease represented more than triple those caused, in a decade, by 14 other diseases that may have mortality avoided by vaccination and other health actions.
Just this year, until October 8, a survey by the Ministry of Health indicated the death by Covid-19 of 270 one-year-old children and 187 between 1 and 5 years old. In the period, there were 12,563 hospitalizations for the disease in children up to five years old, an average of 44.8 per day, according to Observa Infância, a project linked to Fiocruz (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz.
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