Mônica Bergamo: Bolsonaro’s Secretary for Indigenous Health defends vaccine after Doria’s act

The special secretary for Indigenous Health in the Jair Bolsonaro government, Robson Santos da Silva, says he does not want to politicize the application of the Covid-19 vaccine to indigenous children or the presence of Governor João Doria (PSDB-SP) in the inoculation of the first pediatric dose. in the country, in a boy of the Xavante ethnicity.

“The important thing for us is that the indigenous population is being assisted. All initiatives are valid”, says Silva, who is a colonel in the Army reserve. “Everyone deserves to be vaccinated. It is a work of the federal government integrated with states and municipalities”, he continues.

This Friday (14), the indigenous Davi Seremramiwe Xavante, 8, who lives in the state of São Paulo, was the first child to receive the vaccine against Covid-19 in the country. The choice for his name was revealed first hand by the column.

The act in the capital of São Paulo marked the beginning of immunization for children from 5 to 11 years old and a new electoral trump card for Doria, who last year was also next to the first Brazilian vaccinated. The governor of São Paulo is a pre-candidate for the presidency and disaffected by Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

“These vaccines are acquired by the federal government”, defends the member of the Bolsonaro administration. “And that’s it, we shouldn’t politicize such a tense issue, but everyone should work together to vaccinate this population”, he says.

When talking about the childhood vaccination campaign, the minister says that the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai) is responsible only for indigenous people who are in villages.

“From the moment the person goes to live in the city, it is up to the other entities of the federation, in this case states and municipalities, to carry out the vaccination”, he says.

The federal government announced that it already had enough doses to vaccinate all children living on indigenous lands and declared that it is now concentrating efforts on training multidisciplinary health teams.

One of the challenges for Sesai will be to be able to rearrange work schedules so that there are doctors present in all locations that will receive the childhood vaccination campaign.

According to the secretary, unlike the vaccination of indigenous adults, in this case just the presence of nursing professionals is not enough. Some villages only receive medical visits once a week or every 15 days.

“We have a large number of nurses and nursing technicians. [uma campanha de vacinação] normal, it’s quiet. Now, it is not every day that there will be a doctor in every village. There are 6,000 villages”, says Silva.

As the column showed, Davi Seremramiwe Xavante moved from a Xavante tribe in the state of Mato Grosso to Piracicaba (SP) a year ago to be treated at the Instituto da Criança at Hospital das Clínicas. Because of the problem, he has difficulty walking and now wears an orthosis.

The boy, who was immunized with Pfizer’s pediatric vaccine, is the son of the Xavante chief Jurandir Siridiwe. For nine months, the indigenous leader traveled monthly with the boy to the capital of São Paulo so that he could undergo treatment.

With the move to São Paulo, Davi was taken to the house of a tutor in Piracicaba, the researcher Fernanda Viegas Reichardt, who accompanies him in his routine consultations at the HC, with doctors in the areas of rehabilitation and neurology.

Davi received the vaccine almost a year after the first person vaccinated against Covid-19 in Brazil, nurse Mônica Calazans. Her immunization, revealed firsthand by the column on January 17, 2021, symbolized hope for better days amid the face of the pandemic.

​_{JOELMIR TAVARES (interim), with LÍGIA MESQUITA, BIANKA VIEIRA e MANOELLA SMITH} ​ ​ ​