Brazil takes triple the time of Argentina to vaccinate 15% of children against Covid

The mark of 15% of children vaccinated with the first dose against Covid, valued on Tuesday (8) by the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, actually shows the slow pace of a campaign far below the capacity of the PNI (National Program of Immunizations).

Analysis of leaf shows that the country took 23 days to achieve this coverage last weekend. It was almost triple the time spent by Canada, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay (8 to 9 days), according to official data.

The survey points out Brazil as one of the last places in the proportional ranking among ten nations that provide details by date and age —Germany, USA, France, Chile and Italy, in addition to those already mentioned.

Vaccination had reached 16.9% of the target audience by Wednesday (9), according to data from the Ministry of Health. According to the IBGE, there are 20.5 million children aged between 5 and 11 years in the population. .

The country only appears ahead of France, one of the main stages of anti-vaccine activism in Europe (4.5% with partial immunization, that is, with only the first dose). A survey funded by the French government in December revealed that two-thirds of parents of children in this age group were against vaccinating their children against Covid.

Even in relation to countries that also did not take off at the beginning of the campaign, Brazil presents unfavorable numbers for having started behind. The United States and Italy, for example, had similar progress in the first few weeks, but have already reached twice the Brazilian coverage, as applications began last year.

The disparity is even greater in comparison with Chile and Argentina. The South American neighbors authorized childhood vaccination in September and October 2021, respectively, and have already immunized most of their children, including the second dose.

In absolute terms, Brazil was already the third with the most injections applied among the ten countries analyzed: 3.4 million, behind Argentina (9 million) and the United States (15.8 million).

The pace, however, is well below the potential of the PNI. With doses, Brazil has the capacity to immunize 2.4 million people a day, according to the federal government.

This number was reached and even exceeded 44 times last year, considering the moving average of applications, during the campaign against the coronavirus itself. It represents 18 times more than the daily average of 132 thousand childhood vaccines to date.

experts consulted by leaf listed several factors that could explain the slowness and low coverage.

For Renato Kfouri, from the immunization department of the SBP (Brazilian Society of Pediatrics), the main one is the limited supply of doses.

“Again, we started a campaign without vaccines. Partial calls, by age groups or comorbidities, slow down the process. And there is also an uneven distribution. São Paulo had a stock of Coronavac and has already vaccinated half of the children, while many municipalities still do not received”, he says.

The use of Pfizer’s pediatric vaccine was approved on December 16 by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency). The first shipment, with 1.2 million doses, arrived in Brazil almost a month later, on January 13.

In the meantime, federal government authorities promoted actions to discourage childhood vaccination.

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) even promoted attacks against the agency’s technicians, and Minister Queiroga, erroneously stated that vaccines had already caused thousands of deaths.

The government’s schedule calls for the delivery of a total of 20 million Pfizer units by March. It would be enough to meet half of the children’s audience, as the schedule is the same as for adults, with two doses in an interval of eight weeks.

On January 20, the inclusion of Coronavac was also approved in the campaign for children aged 6 and over and without comorbidities. According to the Ministry, the country had 9 million doses in stock, and the Butantan Institute had another 7 million in the fridge.

Kfouri also notes that vaccination was initiated during discharge of cases associated with the Ômicron variant.

“The population was very infected. The adults were in isolation, many children had to wait a period of quarantine before the vaccine. [30 dias]. Although we were behind, we will undoubtedly recover, as our membership and our saturation ceiling are higher than in other countries.”

He also highlights the delay in typing the records, which can take longer in smaller and poorly computerized municipalities. According to data from state secretariats collected by the consortium of press vehicles, coverage on Wednesday (9) was 20%, three percentage points above the ministry’s figures.

The coordinator of the immunizations committee of the SBI (Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases), Rosana Richtmann, cites misinformation as one of the main problems.

“We have something called communicosis, which is the disease of communication. Parents end up being manipulated, they are easier victims of fake news, uncertainties, anguish. This is natural. But the adverse effects are very well documented around the world, and the vaccine is very safe”, he says.

Datafolha surveys showed that adherence to the vaccine or intention to vaccinate reached 94% among adults, while the percentage of Brazilians who supported the immunization of children in January this year was lower: 79%. The survey also showed that, for the majority of the population, President Bolsonaro acted to disrupt childhood immunization.

The vice president of SBIm (Brazilian Society of Immunizations), Isabella Ballalai, agrees that disinformation has affected the campaign and says that the authorities’ contrary positions have generated distrust.

“The population is receiving a huge amount of fake news. We also saw some municipalities demanding signatures of terms of responsibility and there is no such recommendation. This only generates doubts and a perception that the vaccine would be dangerous. It is a huge loss”, he says.

Last week, the city halls of Curitiba, Salvador and cities in the interior of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul backed away from the parental consent requirement.

In a public consultation convened in December, the ministry had argued that children should only be vaccinated with a doctor’s prescription.

The proposal was rejected, but texts published on the government’s official websites still contain excerpts highlighting, for example, that “the vaccination of small children is not mandatory and parents who decide to immunize their children should seek the prior recommendation of a doctor”.

Ballalai highlights Chile as the reference to be observed, due to the fact that the neighboring country has already achieved wide coverage also with pediatric Pfizer and Coronavac.

“The data from Chile [sobre as vacinas] were technically analyzed by Anvisa. And they are the result not of studies, but of the effectiveness in practice, after millions of doses applied. They demonstrated the ability of these vaccines to protect and reduce mainly severe cases, hospitalizations and deaths, including for the multisystem inflammatory syndrome”, he notes.

According to the expert, many people can still resist vaccination due to a misperception about an alleged low risk of Covid in children.

Data from the Ministry of Health indicate that 27,000 Brazilian children have already been hospitalized with a diagnosis of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) confirmed by the coronavirus. Of these, 1,544 died.

The multisystem inflammatory syndrome associated with Covid caused 1,160 hospitalizations and 63 deaths among children aged 0 to 9 years alone. “You cannot neglect a serious disease for which there is already protection”, he emphasizes.