City of SP reduces Pfizer dose interval for adolescents to 21 days

The city of São Paulo reduced this Thursday (11) the interval of doses of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 for teenagers. The period of eight weeks is now 21 days between the first and second application of the immunizing agent. The measure takes effect from this Friday (12).

The decision of the Municipal Health Department was taken after the arrival of a batch of 1.278 million doses of the vaccine, the only one that is released to be applied in this age group.

Initially, the application of the second dose was released after 12 weeks. The Municipal Health Department, however, announced on September 24 the reduction of this interval to eight weeks.

With the new interval, the Ricardo Nunes (MDB) administration provides that all adolescents from 12 to 17 years old have the complete vaccination schedule by December 5th.

The entire municipal network of vaccination posts in the capital will be open on Saturday (13) to serve a greater number of young people. According to the Health Department, around 600,000 teenagers over 12 years of age are able to take the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

For now, the application of the second dose in adolescents is slow in São Paulo. On Wednesday (10), according to the bulletin of the Vacinometer, less than 32% of people aged 17 years had both doses up to date.

The percentage of those with the complete vaccination schedule decreases among the youngest – 16 years old (29.4%), 15 years old (23.3%), 14 years old (14.6%), 13 years old (13.5% ) and 12 years (10%).

On October 18, Governor João Doria (PSDB) had already anticipated the interval for the application of the second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine against Covid to 21 days, but only for people aged 18 years and over.