Brazil has race for booster dose after explosion of Covid cases

Demand for the booster dose against Covid-19 has skyrocketed in recent days in Brazil, during the explosion of cases of the disease driven by the omicron variant. Even with a data blackout since December, the daily number of vaccines applied in the country is the highest since the beginning of this phase of the campaign.

The curve started to grow more vertiginously on January 4, days after reports of entire groups infected after the holidays began to pop up, reaching 478,000 doses this Monday (10), if considered the moving average of the seven days. previous.

The race for immunization stations has two main reasons, according to experts: first, more people reaching their booster date. On December 18, the Ministry of Health reduced the interval between applications from five to four months, which expanded this group.

Second, fear. “We joke that Brazilians like the vaccine that is missing. In the yellow fever outbreak in 2017 it was the same thing. Many people who should have been vaccinated went to the queue and missed a dose”, recalls Isabella Ballalai, vice president of SBIm (Brazilian Society of Immunizations).

Searches for the term “third dose” on Google, for example, doubled between the last week of December and the first week of January. Interest in all the related words, such as “third dose Pfizer” and “Covid booster”, has skyrocketed.

“What moves people the most in search of protection is the perception of risk, it is a known phenomenon. When relatives or close friends become infected, the person goes after it. The great challenge is to get the population vaccinated before the outbreaks, and not during”, emphasizes Renato Kfouri, director of immunizations at the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics.

The data gathered by the consortium of press vehicles, originating from the state health departments, show that the state of São Paulo is the one that most pulls the high, representing half of the reinforcements applied in the country in recent days. Minas Gerais comes next, corresponding to 17%.

Although the city hall of the capital of São Paulo says that it has not noticed a significant increase in immunization posts, with an average of 90,000 applications per day since December, professionals at the cutting edge already say they feel the pressure.

The director of the school health center at the USP School of Medicine, located in Butantã (west zone), says that the growth in vaccine demand combined with the explosion in cases of flu syndrome has caused an overload and a deficit in health professionals. .

“The municipal manager has had difficulty understanding that the professional who works on these two front lines is the same, nursing. When patients increase, I have to move the vaccination employee, and I have 15% to 20% away. They are going into burnout”, says Ademir Lopes Júnior.

In the country, the surge in demand for reinforcement should be even greater than the data indicate, because they do not include immunizations applied in 14 of the 27 units of the federation recently. Brazil is experiencing a month-long information blackout, initiated by hacker attacks on the Ministry of Health’s systems.

Rio de Janeiro, the third most populous state, is one of those not included in the survey. The state capital says, however, that the daily average of booster doses rose from 26,000 to 41,000 between the last week of December and the first week of January (an increase of 58%).

It is important to consider that in the recess period there is always a drop in the search for jobs, and this time it was no different. “It’s common, people are with their heads at parties. It also added the fact that everyone was feeling free from Covid, in addition to the fear of having an adverse effect of the vaccine and not being able to enjoy the New Year’s Eve”, points out Ballalai.

Despite the race for reinforcement, experts say that the pace of application is still below expectations. Brazil currently has only 14% of the population with the extra vaccine —78% received at least one dose, and 68% completed the first cycle.

“It’s slow. There are many people who should have been immunized and were not. The more doses a vaccine requires, the higher the abandonment rate,” says Kfouri. “Communication and active search need to be intensified. For the first time in the country we know the name of everyone who was vaccinated”, he adds.

Ballalai cites the example of the municipality of Milagres (MG), which went out in a van through the streets looking for absentees. “The issue of access is important. Going out in a van in big cities is not feasible, of course, but if you go to schools, companies, you will certainly find people who have not been vaccinated yet”, he proposes.

The São Paulo City Hall says that 383,000 people eligible for the second dose have not yet done so and that it actively searches for this group on a daily basis. However, it does not mention the demand for those who did not take the third one, stating that in this case it is not considered a delay because it is just a reinforcement.

Infectologist Renato Grinbaum recalls that the additional dose is essential for protection against the ômicron variant, which is able to more easily circumvent the first two doses. “It is the best way to slow down and alleviate the problems that we will have. I hope that this movement continues”, he says.