The Ministry of Health has defined that children aged 5 to 11 will receive the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 without having to present a medical prescription. Immunization will start in children with comorbidities and permanent disability.
Immunization of the age group from 5 to 11 years will not be mandatory. The forecast is that this public will be vaccinated in January.
The idea of the folder was to recommend immunization provided that upon presentation of a doctor’s request and parental consent. THE leaf had already advanced that the folder would give up this prescription.
For the vaccination of this public, only parental authorization will be required. In the event of the presence of those responsible for the vaccination, the written term will be waived.
The statement was given by the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, when announcing the inclusion of children in the National Operational Plan. The press conference took place at the Ministry of Health on Wednesday (5).
The ministry awaited the public consultation and hearing to make a decision.
The public consultation carried out by the ministry ended on Sunday (2) and pointed out that most of the ears were contrary to the medical prescription. About 100,000 people demonstrated.
Entities that spoke about the matter at the hearing were also against the requirement of a medical prescription. Among them are Conass (National Council of Health Secretaries), Conasems (National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries), CFM (Federal Council of Medicine) and SBI (Brazilian Society of Infectology).
Conass even stated that no state would require a medical prescription for childhood vaccination against Covid-19. As of Tuesday (4), 20 states had already published a rule on the subject.
The Ministry of Health also announced that the vaccination of this target audience will have an order. Initially it will be children with permanent disabilities or comorbidities.
The Ministry of Health must receive at least 20 million pediatric doses of Pfizer against Covid-19 by March, enough to immunize about half of the population of children aged 5 to 11 years.
The government expects to receive 3.7 million doses by the end of January. The doses will be distributed proportionally to the states and the Federal District.
Pediatric doses will be delivered under a government contract to receive 100 million vaccines from Pfizer in 2022, which can be scaled up to 150 million units.
The IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) estimated, in 2021, that there were 20.4 million people aged 5 to 11 years. As the Pfizer vaccine is applied in two doses, the volume currently expected to arrive in Brazil in the first quarter should serve to immunize half of this public (10 million children).
The Ministry of Health’s response on child immunization coincides with the deadline set by Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), for the government to provide information on childhood vaccination. Lewandowski is the rapporteur of a PT request related to the matter.
Anvisa approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine in the 5-11 age group on December 16, but the government still did not have the vaccines on hand.
After the decision of Anvisa, President Bolsonaro opened a campaign to discourage the vaccination of children. It also threatened to expose the names of agency members who participated in the analysis.
Ctai (Covid-19’s Technical Advisory Board on Immunization) gave a favorable opinion on the inclusion of these children in Covid’s vaccination campaign.
Even with Anvisa’s registration and the technical chamber’s opinion, minister Queiroga, who is pleased to keep Bolsonaro in his post and is considering running for office this year, decided to put the subject up for public consultation.
In an interview with leaf, the president of Anvisa, Antonio Barra Torres, said that Bolsonaro’s speeches encouraged threats to the lives of Anvisa employees.
He also considered the public consultation and Minister Queiroga’s proposal to charge medical prescriptions to immunize younger people to be inadequate. “It has no precedent in dealing with the pandemic and is inexorably taking up time,” said Barra Torres.
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