Prefecture intensifies search for children with delayed Covid vaccine in SP

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The city of São Paulo has intensified the active search to vaccinate children with overdue doses against Covid-19. Since the 20th of December, more than 18,000 approaches have been made throughout the capital.

The action is aimed mainly at children from 6 months to under 3 years old (2 years, 11 months and 29 days) from the priority group – with comorbidities, permanent physical disability, immunosuppressed and indigenous people. Vaccination for this public at UBS (Basic Health Units) began on November 17, 2022.

In the active search, the Municipal Health Department also includes other children’s age groups, with or without comorbidities. In addition, it already vaccinates with the remaining doses children of the same age group whose parents left their name on the list of xepinha.

According to Luiz Artur Caldeira, health surveillance coordinator in the municipality, there are other active search strategies.

“We check whether children in this age group who go to the unit for consultation, get medication, take another vaccine are in the priority group. Even siblings if they are together. Many parents do not understand these classifications of comorbidities. In some cases, children have diseases chronicles and the parents don’t know”, explains Caldeira.

The routine active search, aimed at any child who did not go to the health center to receive the immunization, is based on a system that points out the defaulters.

“The child attends the unit for the first time and is vaccinated. The electronic system for recording doses indicates when he should have returned and did not return”, he explains. “With the list, the employees call and go to their house to find out why they have not been vaccinated. The procedure is the same if that child has not yet taken any dose.”

Manuella, 1 year and 9 months old, received the second dose of Pfizer Baby at home, in Tremembé. Who applied it was Luciana Nepomuceno, 41, nursing technician at UBS Dona Mariquinha Sciáscia.

The vaccine should have been taken on January 4th. Despite being informed about the return date at the unit, the mother, Laura Cristina Alves, 35, who is a public school teacher of early childhood education, thought that the distance between doses should be three months.

The report accompanied the active search on the 6th and 9th of January, in Tremembé and Parque Edu Chaves, both in the north of São Paulo.

After Manuella, in about an hour and a half, the team went to other children’s addresses in Tremembé. Two of them were non-existent and the third had no one at home. Phone calls made to families were also in vain.

Theo, 3, should have been vaccinated on December 15th. The delay was due to the fact that the family stayed a few days outside the coverage area of ​​the reference unit —the UBS Parque Edu Chaves—, according to the justification of housewife Juliana Fernandes, 23, the boy’s mother.

Between visits, nurse Leila Cristina, 36, and nursing technician Débora de Souza Gilo, 32, stopped at Nicolly’s house, 12. The girl should have taken the second dose of Pfizer in May last year and did not attend the unit because the health center is far from where she lives and there was no one to take her. The grandmother works a lot, according to her.

The work was also justification for seamstress Rozemary Quispe, 37, not to have taken her son, Miguel, 7, to take the second dose of pediatric Pfizer in June.

“We don’t often find cases of refusal that need to be worked on, in the sense of convincing or even taking action. Our reality is more inattention, perhaps related to the low perception of risk – parents are unable to see the seriousness of the disease and end up leaving it for later “, says Caldeira.

In traditional UBS, the work is done by the nursing team; in those that operate on the ESF model (Family Health Strategy), everything starts with community health agents during house-to-house visits.

“They check the vaccination card, do a more standardized check: last date of vaccination and age. If there is a child without a card or the date of vaccination is not consistent with age, they refer it to the nursing assistant of the FHS team for evaluation” , clarifies.

Mônica Levi, president of SBIM (Brazilian Society of Immunizations) recalls that the percentage of hospitalizations and complications caused by Covid is higher in children, because it is an age group that is not adequately vaccinated.

“Covid cannot be neglected. It is suffering for the child to be intubated, in need of oxygen or with this SIM-P (pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome), which is serious and kills, apart from the long Covid. pediatricians that children are important victims of Covid”, says Levi.

Until the last day 10, 30,501 doses of Pfizer Baby had been applied in children aged 6 months to 2 years, 11 months and 29 days – 23,958 first doses (D1) and 6,543 second doses (D2).

27,094 children who received D1 through remaining doses (xepinha) are included, in addition to the 5,677 who have already taken D2. Of the priority group –which has comorbidities, the immunosuppressed, indigenous and disabled—, 2,541 received D1 and 866 D2.

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